Tax Deductible Rental Property Expenses: Insurance, Cleaning/Maintenance, and Repairs

You should ascertain that all professional services and fees are arranged adequately and accurately reported for the objectives of taxation conformity, now that you’ve decided to rent out your property for income. Why don’t we talk about a few of these expenses.

Insurance

As with most insurance premiums, it’s usually pre-paid upfront for a particular amount of time. An illustration here would be: you obtained insurance protection with this particular rental property on March 2012 for $1200. April 2012 to March 31, 2013 is the coverage period of this plan. Since the insurance coverage time period does exceed the present tax year, you must identify the payments applicable to this current tax year only and then bring forward the balance for the upcoming reporting year. With this illustration the allowed insurance premium tax deduction may be $900 (9 months April to Dec 2012) or $100 per month of qualified rental use.

Keep in mind that many Insurance companies regularly combine insurance premium packages among business and personal customers at a discount rate. Just the company rental property pertinent part may be deducted. You need to use your individual tax return to write off any non-business or personal utilization. Finally, Title Insurance is not applied as an expenditure and should be included in the Cost Basis of the rental property.

Cleaning and Maintenance

When it is used on daily cleaning and upkeep of common places, then day to day maintenance of the rental property is an allowed expense. These kinds of expenses are limited to the days which have been tax deductible rental property hours but not personal use days. To make certain the property is in great condition and running order, you can do what many other property owners do, and engage a local contracted company to maintain your property. These services will provide a number of professional services like common repairs, dusting, window washing, and appliance cleaning. Only these types of services are permitted, any kind of structural maintenance and modifications must be allotted to the Cost Basis of the property.

Repairs

There are frequently projects that do not require serious reconstruction of the structure of the rental property like painting or appliance maintenance. In accordance with the leasing duration, you can deduct such required and ordinary costs.

Do not include any time periods which will be considered to be individual use times, since expenses are only allowable in relation to the income of the rental property. The only costs that are authorized are those which are associated with the authorized leasing timeframe, specifically.

You can obtain the various forms outlined in this information on the IRS’s webpage. Refer to IRS Publication 527 for more information.


Seattle CPA+John Huddleston has written extensively on tax related subjects of interest to small business owners. He is a graduate of Washington State University and the University of Washington School of Law.

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