Sold Home - 2 Questions

[Pringles]

Hello, 

I sold my home in October 2017 in IL for a large loss (around 80K loss) 

Based on this: 

1. Do I need to choose the option "I sold my home" in turbotax? 

2. I was planning on declaring the 2016 property taxes that I paid in full and ALSO the property taxes that were paid from Jan 2017 - Oct 2017. Is this allowed if I DO NOT select the "I sold my home" option? Or do I have to wait until 2019 to deduct the Jan 2017 - Oct 2018 Taxes?

Thank you! 

[ScruffyCurmudgeon]

Your questions

1. If you incurred a loss on the sale of a personal residence, since you cannot claim this as a capital loss, you have no obligation to report the sale.  However, if you do receive a Form 1099-S indicating the gross proceeds of the sale, you should keep records to respond to any inquiry to substantiate the loss, and to show that no taxable gain resulted.  On the other hand, if you don't mind filing a Schedule D - and you have a version of the product that does support Schedule D, you could file the D anyway just as early notice that there was no taxable gain.  Probably does not matter.
2. You can report for Tax Year 2017 any and all property taxes paid in the calendar year of 2017 irrespective of whether the taxes were for calendar years 2016 or 2017. 
   
   Note that if you had, prior to 12/31/2017, a document from your municipality that showed your assessment and any obligation to pay in 2018 and if you paid toward that obligation in 2017, that also can be reported as deductible - but only to the extent that you had that invoice or document that clearly showed the assessed obligation owed.

[Pringles]

Thank you scruffy, at the point of point 2 did you mean 2016-2017 . Just wondering if that was a typo. Thanks

[ScruffyCurmudgeon]

yes- both prior year(s) and 2017.