sale of rental property

[Russell Ferance]

I have owned my rental property for 22 years and recently sold it. I'm doing my taxes and realize that I need to calculate my depreciation over those 22 years.  However I don't have my tax records that go back that far. Since I don't have these records how do I know what to put in line 22 Depreciation of form 4797

[Ashish Acharya]

Originally posted by @Russell Ferance:

I have owned my rental property for 22 years and recently sold it. I'm doing my taxes and realize that I need to calculate my depreciation over those 22 years.  However I don't have my tax records that go back that far. Since I don't have these records how do I know what to put in line 22 Depreciation of form 4797

You don’t need to calculate that if your last year’s return was correctly filed. It should be in your depreciation reports-  it’s called accumulates depreciation. You also need to add the partial depreciation from year 2020 when you sold it. 

If you never took the depreciation in the prior years, then you will be paying taxes on the deductions that you never took. There is a way to fix that via Form 3115 but you need help from tax advisor to complete that. It’s not a DYI project.