Hi,

I probably am the one and the only "landlord" has on rental income for a year (unless I have a qualified renter before the year end.)

What do I do or how do I do when my only property has no income for one year when I file it to IRS.

I know to attach a copy of the judgement to the form for collecting rent, and plus all the expenses, the total negative income will be more than $20K for filing 2018 income.

I would like to know how to carry over this negative income in to 2019 filing year. I don't have much income to write off this negative income.

Can you tell me which IRS publishes that I should review and work on the filing myself. Yes, I do it manually.

Thanks.

Yes, TurboTax is a good option. The Premium package is what you want unless you also have other business income, then you would need the Business package.

Another vote for TurboTax. Even the accountants and tax filing people use a computer. There is no reason to do it with pen and paper.

TurboTax will walk you through all the questions of expenses and income. You fill in the blanks, it spits out the forms for filing, then you can even file electronically with no paper. They even have a state tax program.

There are plenty of explanations if you want them, and references. It will pull in last years numbers if when you use it in subsequent years, so if you have certain property or accounts it will be sure to ask you if you don't fill them in. Figures out depreciation, mileage etc from the numbers you enter. Every time you open it, it will look for updates. Well worth the $100 and you can find it on sale at lots of places.

I purchased an apartment complex for a bank that had foreclosed on it two years prior. For the first six months I was doing eviction and fixing up the place. December of 1997 was the first time I was able to collect rents. With over $200,000 in repairs and upgrades the IRS thought I was hiding income. $9750 in rent and $200,000 in repairs. There were to auditors assigned to my case.

Alice: You can only put your expenses for the property into Schedule E and have those subtracted from your total income from other places. You may not say "I could have had twenty thousand dollars". The money spent on taxes and upkeep for the property are your losses and you subtract those. Make sure you have the receipts for what you spent. You don't have a receipt for the 20K you did not get.

Robert said the same thing above. He spent 200k and only got 9750 in rent so he deducted about 191 thousand in losses after he subtracted the rent he did get.

You need to complete Schedule E. You should be able to prove all expenses, if audited.

Your total net loss will go on line 17 of your 1040, offsetting your other income. If line 37 is negative, you may have to pay no tax.

Go to HR Block and have them review your return, or prepare your return.

As others have said (and I thought AllyM did a good job, in particular), rent not collected is not the same thing as an expense that you can deduct. Same thing with judgments.

A judgment for money is an asset. It has value. How much value remains to be seen. But basically it is potential future income that is sitting out there "on the books" but it doesn't impact you in the "income" side until you collect on it or sell it to a debt buyer.

Regarding uncollected rent: let's say for example I had a house that "should" rent for $1000/month. If I sit on it for a year, I do not get to report a $12,000 "loss"... I simply have no income. It is neither positive nor negative: it's simply zero.

On the other hand, if I am renting that house and have to replace an HVAC system and a roof (total $12,000) then I get to deduct those expenses (or the depreciable yearly percentage) from my income.