selling assets using TT Premier

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
March 12, 2022
1 reply
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i purchased house in 2006 to live in. i moved and rented it out from 2010 thru 2019. for 2020 in TT i converted rental to personal use with a date of 1/1/2020. I did not live in it one day in 2020. TT prepared a sched E with a minimum amt of depreciation. I subsequently sold property 3/3/2021. based on my situation I do not know where in TT to record the sale of the property, i.e. under "Sell of Business investment" or "Sale of second home".

PattiF

Level 15

This will be entered as Sale of Business Investment. The depreciation recapture will need to be accounted for to ensure an accurate tax return.

You said that there was a Schedule E for 2020 with a minimum amount of depreciation. Was this marked as no longer a rental?

Here is an answer from Champ Carl that is about your situation. He is advising to leave it as a rental to make recording the sale easier. If the house is still listed as a rental, that may be the easiest way to account for the sale and handle the depreciation for the house and other depreciating improvements. The dates in his answer are not current, but the information has not changed.

"Yes, you can convert the property to personal use if desired. But then when you sell the property you can "NOT" report the sale in the Rental & Royalty Income (SCH E) section of the program. You have to report it in the Sale of Business Property section. But this is going around your elbow to get to your thumb, as it's much more prone to user error. If you did not live in the house for one single day as your primary residence, 2nd home, or use it as a vacation home for one single day after the last renter moved out, there's no need to convert the property to personal use, and makes no sense to do so if there was "in fact" no personal use of the property in 2018. Just leave it classified as residential rental real estate. That's the easiest, simplest way to do this and not have to deal with all the *manual* math you will be "required" to do on your own for things such as depreciation recapture and utility expenses.

Just report the number of days rented in 2018 as 1 (one) day. (The program will not accept zero days). Then your rental income will be zero for 2018.

For expenses, you can fully and completely deduct all rental-related expenses such as utility bills (electric, water, etc.) and repairs. Then for those things that qualify as property improvements, you'll add them to the assets section with 0% business use. (I think the program won't accept zero percent business use, so just make it 0.1% business use. The depreciation will be minimal if not zero). Then you can report the sale in the rental section and the program will do all the math *for you*".

@Carl11_2

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gjgogolAuthor

Level 5

@Carl11_2 I spoke to you last year about this and at that time you suggested converting it personal use for 2020 return. could you please PM me?

Carl

Level 11

its in my PM messages to you, not the regular threads. it was last week of March 2021. one of your messages states, stated

"What I suggest you do on your 2020 taxes since you did not rent it again after the last tenant vacated in 2019, is that you convert the property to personal use on 1/1/2020.

Now the program has a "quirk" where you have to enter "something" for rental income - even if that "something" is the digit zero. So enter zero for rental income.

Then, don't bother even working through the rental expenses section, as you can't claim/deduct anything on SCH E since you reclassified it as personal use property on 1/1/2020.

Next, in the assets/depreciation section DO NOT enter any of your property improvements here. I'm talking about all the new appliances, floors, carpets, etc. There's no need. it's just a waste of time since your improvements can not be depreciated anyway, since they were never placed "in service" as a rental asset.

But you do need to work through any assets that are already there to convert them to personal use. At an absolute minimum, you will have at least the property itself listed there.

So start working it through and on the screen for "I stopped using this asset in 2020" click YES. Then enter the disposition/conversion date of 1/1/2020.

On the "Special Handling require?" screen, you *must* select YES. If you select NO, then you will be *forced* to enter sales information. You don't want to report the sale in the SCH E section. You want to report the sale in the "Sale of Business Property" section, so that you can include in your cost basis, the amounts you paid for the qualified property improvements.

When you get that done, post back and let me know the number of assets you have listed in the assets/depreciation section."

now I see you do not recommend that move but i already did it for 2020 return.

I have PMs turned off.

Having converted the property to personal use on the 2020 tax return, it should not even be on SCH E on your 2021 tax return.

Basically, you need to print out the two 4562's for that property and the 8832 from the 2020 tax return, as it has all the information you need to report the sale in the Sale of Business Property section.