Will you have more than $10,000 of State/Local income taxes or Sales Taxes or Property Taxes to report on your 2018 tax return as itemized deductions on Form 1040 Schedule A?
Do you have an actual Property tax bill issued by your city/county for the property taxes owed in 2018?
We prepaid our 2018 DC property tax on our home. Would it make sense to prepay DC property tax on a rental property, too? We'll still have to itemize, and the business generates only a tiny bit more profit than loss at this point.
Property taxes on rentals are deducted as a rental expense on schedule E and that has not been changed by the new law. Only taxes on personal real property (first home, vacation home, etc.)
If you will have more than $10,000 of combined state and local income tax and property tax next year, it may make sense to pre-pay your property tax. However, your jurisdiction must be willing to accept pre-payments. Not all are. (For example, in New York you can pre-pay your county/town tax, but only on the last business day of the year (Dec 29) and you can't prepay your school tax.)
Your local news media is probably running stories about this, or check your town, county, or whoever collects property taxes in your area, for information specific to you.
There was an Emergency Order that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued in his state Friday, allowing taxpayers there to prepay their 2018 taxes.
@SweetieJean my answer still stands. The emergency order allows certain counties to issue their town/county tax bills on the last business day of the year (December 29). (Certain other counties have always had this authority, it's complicated.) Therefore you can pay your town/county property tax on December 29 ONLY (not the 28th and not the 30th or 31st), either in person or MAYBE online depending on your town assessor. School taxes for 2018 are due in September 2018 and the bills won't be generated until after July 1, 2018, therefore you can't pre-pay your 2018 school property tax in New York. (Without the bill, also called a tax warrant, the school district has no legal authority to collect any tax, and you can't prepay that which can't be legally collected.)