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December 16, 2015 at 5:11 PM #21814December 16, 2015 at 6:01 PM #792613CoronitaParticipant
#2 yes I believe.
#4. I use CamScanner on my android phone and get into a habbit of taking a picture of my receipt and uploading it to Google drive. I even have tsgs to designate which property the receipt is for.December 17, 2015 at 3:00 PM #792653HatfieldParticipant#4 I do something similar to what each of you are doing. I personally can’t decide which receipts are worse, Home Depot or those flimsy tractor-feed ones from Dixieline.
Anyway, for the home depot receipts, I’ll fold them in such a way that only the relevant info is visible (to save space) and then tape them onto three-hole-punched 8×11 card stock that goes into the binder. If I’m buying for multiple rental units, I’ll try to separate the items at the register, because each property has its own binder. I theory I could then scan these pages, but I’ve never bothered. I just put ’em in the binder. I should go back about ten years and see how they’re holding up.
My tax preparer never sees the actual receipts – I enter them into an Excel sheet and he works from that. Actually, I’ve been at this long enough that my excel sheet then generates a trial Schedule E. Usually he goes with those numbers, although occasionally he’ll make a correction for an item that needs to be depreciated and not expensed, or vice versa.
December 20, 2015 at 5:55 PM #792739phasterParticipant[quote=gzz]
4. How are you all saving receipts?Home Depot receipts start to get semi-illegible after a year or two. I enter the receipts into excel, but not every item. They read like:
12/15/15 – Plants for landscaping and basement finishing materials – $103.25
[/quote]sign up for “pro-rewards” at home depot!
http://www.homedepot.com/c/Pro_Xtra
for example, when I check out at home depot I tell the cashier my phone number (AKA “pro-rewards” #) and I am sent via eMail my receipt
also when I pay with a business-credit card, I am asked if I want to give the “receipt” a job description/name
as you mentioned its helpful to keep purchases in a spreadsheet (what I do also is have broad classifications like:
gardening/landscaping
materials(paint)
materials(plumbing)
materials(electrical)in a spreadsheet column, so at the end of the year I can quickly sort and classify everything for taxes (and is a quick way to make a P/L statement if you are doing a re-fi at a bank)
FYI I also use a spreadsheet for all rental related bank deposits (which also is useful I’ve found out to show the tenant when they move out exactly what they paid in rent/security deposit)
As to the rest of the questions I consult a tax professional (BUT with spreadsheet showing what you income/expenses are it should make answering these other questions much much much easier)
December 21, 2015 at 12:24 PM #792756skerzzParticipantYou should consult your CPA regarding #3. Depreciation must be claimed based on standard depreciation tables provided by the IRS. If you don’t claim it, you lose it (“allowed or allowable” rule). Depreciation taken decreases passive income and/or increases your passive loss. If you sell the property, your gain is based on your adjusted basis (generally original cost basis + improvements – depreciation allowed/allowable). Assuming a net gain, you’d first recapture the depreciation previously taken as ordinary income and the rest of the gain would be capital in nature. Your passive losses carry forwards generated in the past years can be used to offset the depreciation recapture and (I believe) the capital gain. This is general info regarding the treatment and is not intended to be tax advice. Consult a CPA
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