Hi all! I sublet out my rented apartment last year for 78 days (I am not the original landlord and have absolutely no ownership of the space). The sublet was not quite enough to cover the rent, so technically I lost a small amount after deducting rent to my landlord as a “Miscellaneous Expense”. I’m having some trouble entering this in as a Schedule E in TT under the “Rental” section of income, even after searching posts on this forum.
The main thing confusing me is the “Was this Property Rented for All of 2019” question when I go to enter the sublet in TT. Right now I’ve just answered “no” and put down the 78 days I sublet in the “Days rented” box.
My biggest confusion is what to put in the other box: “Personal use”. Can I leave this blank, or do I need to enter the number of days I lived in the apartment myself outside of subletting it? The issue is that entering 287 in the “Personal use” box triggers a question later in the flow asking me “Did you own this rental property for all of 2019?” which doesn’t make sense since I don’t own the property at all (I simply sublet it as a renter).
According to this post (https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/tax-credits-deductions/discussion/if-i-am-subleasing-my-apartment-...) I should be able to put 365 or the whole year here. Unfortunately, this seems to mess things up later, since TT then tells me I’m allowed to deduct $19 from my income since the sublet was at a loss. I know for a fact that this is erroneous, since I’m not allowed to have the loss from the sublet as a deduction. I can only eliminate the sublet income using rent paid to my landlord, not go into the negative.
Any insight would be super appreciated! If I’m allowed to just leave that “Personal use days” box blank. everything works and TT correctly tells me my deduction is $0 for the sublet (even though my income is listed as -$19). Could I even state that the property was rented the whole year, since it was under my control for the entire sublet period? Both of these solutions seem to avoid the problem.
Thanks so much again for reading this!
