Filing airbnb income using turbotax desktop

[adelejjeh]

We have a two bedroom apartment that we pay rent for, and in 2018 we rented out one of the two rooms from March 15 to September 30. During that time the room was listed on airbnb, even though it wasn't actually occupied for the entire period of time, and we weren't using the room for personal purposes on the days that it was empty. When I calculated the amount that we payed for rent and utilities during those 6.5 months, and divided it by 2, the result was that the amount we payed in rent and utilities for that room was more than what we made by renting it out in airbnb. When I entered this info into turbotax as a rental property, the only place I found to list the rent that we pay was under "other expenses", and it didn't add up correctly: turbotax said that our profit from the rental was $980 when in fact our expenses were more than our income. Are there any instructions on how to properly fill out airbnb rentals when the apartment itself is a rental (not an owned home)? What could I be doing wrong?

[lukehawksworth]

Did you ever find the answer to this?

[tagteam · Accepted solution]

---

@lukehawksworth wrote:

Did you ever find the answer to this?

---

The simple answer is the TurboTax user did the calculation and then allowed TurboTax to do essentially the same calculation (i.e., the expenses were divided twice, once by the user and another time by TurboTax). So, the expenses were divided in half twice.

If you are going to do the math yourself, then enter your calculated figures into TurboTax and do not let TurboTax calculate the "rental use percentage" (or any other relevant calculation) for you. Doing so will result in your (already prorated) expenses being reduced again.