Just Moved from TurboTax - How to find Prior-Year Depreciation?

strygun

I just quit TurboTax (finally). Loving FreeTaxUSA so far. I have a house that I rent out, and FTU is asking me to input the total depreciation I've claimed on my prior years' taxes. Is there an easy way to figure this out, or should I just use FTU's estimate that comes up? I'm guessing the hard way would be to look at all prior years' returns from when I bought the house to now and add that depreciation up? At least it's in the same box on the same form every year…

RyanZ

Welcome strygun to the FreeTaxUSA Community!

The easiest way to figure this out is to locate the depreciation schedule that should have been included with your prior year tax return. If the amount that FTU recommends is different from the depreciation schedule, I recommend that you contact Support while logged into your account and ask if they are able to identify why the amounts are different.

A depreciation schedule should have been included with your prior year tax return. Information on the depreciation schedule should include the following:
1) Cost
2) Allocation to land (if applicable)
3) Depreciable Basis (not always the same as cost)
4) Service life (in years) - 27.5 years for residential real estate
5) Depreciation method/convention (usually MACRS HY 200 or SL)
6) Bonus, special or Section 179 depreciation
7) Current year depreciation (applied to that particular tax return
8) Accumulated depreciation*

*Some software will include the accumulated depreciation at the end of the previous year, which you require you to add the previous accumulated depreciation to the current year depreciation. Other software will include the current year depreciation amount in the accumulated depreciation amount. The depreciation report generated by FreeTaxUSA provides the previous depreciation with the current depreciation.

You may contact us through your FreeTaxUSA account for specific questions to your tax return.