Fair Rental Days? - Schedule E

I am interested in what others reply, but were NONE of your days at the property management days? Such as inspecting the property, meeting with vendors, doing your own bit of repairs and cleaning, buying new items for use by renters, etc. etc.?

I have not run across this specific issue before. But my guess is that it depends on your intention. The property should be considered open for business in any day that you have it open for, and market for use by, renters. So if it is available to rent, and you try to rent it out for every day you don't actually use it, then your second preparer is correct.

Taxed and Spent snipped-for-privacy@nonospam.com wrote in news:u0418o$sfks$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

A google search finds this:

"Fair rental days” are the number of days your home was actually rented by a party, not the total number of days it was available to rent. As a supplement to Form 1040, Form Schedule E asks about fair rental days to determine if your property is considered a business or a residence in the eyes of the IRS."

A search at irs.gov finds this:

"If you use the dwelling unit for both rental and personal purposes, you generally must divide your total expenses between the rental use and the personal use based on the number of days used for each purpose."

hasn't replied yet, so let's see what he has to say.

It doesn't look to me that this issue is open to opinion by the IRS. Looks like it's calculated so the IRS gets the most in taxes.

This quote is from a website that just gives someone's opinion, without any supporting documentation. I think it's wrong. Yes, it may be considered a hobby rather than a business if you use it for more than 10% of the days it's actually rented out. But that doesn't mean that the days you are holding it open for rent are days for personal use.

As far as I'm concerned, if you had the property up for rent for all the days you weren't using it, (and you don't use it very many days comparatively) when no one is staying there but you are marketing it and wanting to find people to stay there during those days, you are using it for rental purposes, even if not actually renting it out.

You can do it the safe way if you like. When you do that you also lose depreciation. But if the IRS decides that days that the place was for rent but not rented were actually for rental purposes, they will require you to recapture depreciation for those days anyway, even if you actually never took that depreciation.

"Stuart O. Bronstein" snipped-for-privacy@lexregia.com wrote in news:XnsAFD7AE1B2121Davocatstuyahoofr@130.133.4.11:

This comment is off topic, but I always wondered why there was never any attribution to google searches that provide those types of results. I really don't care for those types of results. Thanks.

I think it's wrong. Yes, it

Past preparers have always done it the 'safe' way, and I've always taken depreciation.

Here is my preparer's reply:

"The prior years were prepared correctly. They used the standard method of calculating business vs personal use allocations. Because you used the property so few days for personal use I decided to treat it like we would if there were no personal use days. In that event, all days the property was available to rent even if not rented are considered as if rented. It is a slightly more aggressive approach but I've never heard of it being questioned by the IRS. If you would be more comfortable with the standard approach I can certainly modify the Schedule E."

Ok. I get it.

During all years, the property was available for use except for the days it was used for my private use...for repairs, cleaning, etc. All other

Also, in all years, including this year, depreciation was taken.

Using the 'safe' method, (private use divided by (actual occupied rental

• private use)), prior years private use has always between 28% and 15%.

For 2022, the 'safe' method gives a private use of 14%, and the 'aggressive' method gives a private use of 7%, so I see this preparer's thinking.

I think I'll just approve his method, as either way costs me nothing, and depreciation is taken.