How to write off general business expenses with several rentals?

[Rick Jones]

Hi All,

So might be a stupid question but here goes... What is the best way to categorize expenses that are for your overall business operation when you have several properties? For example say I purchase a printer, stamps, and laptop for business use. These 3 items would be used across the 7 properties I own so how would you note that on a schedule E come tax time since its used across the board for the overall operation of the business and not linked to a specific property. In the past, I have just placed each item with a different property on the schedule E but I feel like this is inaccurate and there must be a better way.

Thanks!

Rick

[Cody L.]

I had the same question early on.

What I've done is setup an LLC for management. My properties pay my management LLC a management fee (8%). That becomes it's income.

The expenses are the property managers. My office utils. Computers. Phones. Internet. Etc. my goal is to have my management LLC just make a little bit.

Our tax system is such crap. This was the best way I've found to do it.

A CPA would tell you to calculate what % of your phone time is spent on which property and prorate the bill accordingly. Which seems f'ing ridiculous.