Should I add my rental income loss to my AGI in calculating MAGI?

[KeithL]

I'm claiming a loss in Schedule E for my rental properties. I didn't sell any of my investment properties. The rent I collected in 2019 just couldn't cover the expenses and deprecation. Do I need to add the loss in Schedule E to my AGI when I calculate the MAGI?

[rjs]

MAGI for what purpose? There are about a dozen different definitions of MAGI for different purposes.

Are you asking about MAGI on line 7 of Form 8582 for passive loss limitations? Why are you trying to calculate it yourself? TurboTax will calculate it for you automatically.

This online community is run by Intuit, the company that makes TurboTax, to help its customers use TurboTax to prepare their tax returns. If you are using other software, you should ask for help in the support forum for the software you are using. If you are doing your tax return by hand, the rules for calculating MAGI on Form 8582 are in the instructions for line 7 on page 10 of the IRS instructions for Form 8582.

[KeithL]

I'm trying to calculate the modified adjustable gross income to determine if I'm eligible to contribute to Roth IRA. I've found an article in intuit.com saying I need to add rental loss to AGI to calculate MAGI but the definition of rental loss seems to be for rental property loss after selling your investment property. I'm a active participant. I'm not sure if I need to add the loss I claim in Schedule E in calculating MAGI

[rjs]

To calculate MAGI for Roth IRA contributions use Worksheet 2-1 in IRS Publication 590-A. It doesn't say anything about adding back rental losses. (There's a note at the bottom of the worksheet, that I don't quite understand, about refiguring your AGI in certain cases if you have passive activity losses. But you said you are active.)

Worksheet 2-1 (online)

Publication 590-A (download PDF)

You didn't say what specific Intuit article you looked at. I know there's one that talks about MAGI in general terms. It describes one way of calculating MAGI, but doesn't point out that there are different definitions of MAGI for different purposes. From the article you would think that MAGI is always calculated the same way, for all purposes.