|
If you rented out residential or commercial real estate during the year, you will normally report your income and expenses from this activity on Part I of Schedule E, Supplemental Income and Loss. Schedule E has space for up to three different real estate or royalty properties. Line 1 asks you to identify the type of property (such as "apartment building," "store," etc.) and the street address. You should also show your percentage of ownership in the property, if you (and your spouse, if filing jointly) own less than 100 percent. If you own, say, half of the property with another owner, you would report half of the income and half of the expenses on your tax return, regardless of which of you actually received the check for the income or paid the expenses out of pocket. For each property, you are asked to answer "yes" or "no" to the question of whether you or your family used it for more than the greater of 14 days or 10 percent of the total days rented. See the discussion on vacation homes that explains how to make the count. Income and expenses for each property are reported separately in columns A, B, and C, and the totals from all properties combined are entered in the "totals" column. If you have more than three properties, use as many copies of Schedule E as you need. Just be sure to fill out the "totals" column on only one of the copies, which will become the "master." Schedule E is not used to report farm rental income if the rent is paid in the form of a percentage of the crops or livestock produced on the farm. In that case, you must use Form 4835, Farm Rental Income and Expenses, instead. But if the farm rent is paid in terms of a flat fee, use Schedule E. Also, if you provide a large number of services to tenants in a residential property, you may have to treat your activity as being more akin to running a hotel (reported on Schedule C) than investing in real estate. The IRS says that providing maid service to tenants can transform your activity into a business, not a Schedule E rental. However, providing occasional cleaning or concierge services would probably not be sufficient to change the nature of your activity. For more details on how to handle rental real estate on your tax return, check out the following:
|
||||
 |
 |
