Taxes taxes taxes taxes

[Shane Clarkson]

Hello everyone. 

I’ve came here today in hopes of getting a few questions answered.

Does anyone know of a good free public forum where I can get help when I have a question about my taxes? I’m looking for the kind of place that is there to want to help me learn, not tell me to hire a professional! I am fully confident in myself doing my own papers if I can just get a question answered once in a while when the answer isn’t easily found to make sure I do it correctly.

In the hopes someone here also fully manages their own taxes, I’ll ask here too.

Where does a landlord who is also the repair man file their mileage and the home office deduction?  

You would think that would be an easy to find answer. Unfortunately it just points to thousands of articles telling you that you can take those deductions, just not a single one mentions where exactly. I have  searched and searched, and the answer I came up with, I have now been told is wrong by a “tax professional”. 

Anyone else here do your own taxes and deduct for mileage? I could sure use some insight on how to log this properly.

If bp isn’t a great place to ask this, I apologize, but I don’t know where else to go.

thanks all.

[Evan Polaski]

@Shane Clarkson, my mileage is always tracked as an expense to each specific property.  It is 6 miles round trip for Property A, when I go.  It is 4 for Property B.  Each site visit gets booked to that property.  

For office equipment (when I bought my laptop) or new printer, I believe my accountant spread it across my properties, since I generally spend equal amounts of time on each property, since they are all single families.  All of this was reported at the asset level on schedule E.  From my understanding, if you want to complete Schedule C, you would need to book a management expense to the properties, account for that income on Schedule C, and then book your home office, equipment, etc through the management company on your Schedule C.  

And the reason you get a lot of "talk to your professional" is because we are all covering our own butts.  I am not a tax professional, nor do I know your scenario, and therefore I am giving you tax advice, I am simply passing along what I have either done, or been told by by an accountant for my particular situation and under the tax laws at the time.