Question

How do I properly enter property taxes in Deductions & Credits if I claimed some in a home office deduction?

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
April 7, 2023
1 reply
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In the Wages & Income section, I claimed a home office, for which part of the deduction is property tax.

When I got to the "Property (Real Estate) Taxes" section in Deductions & Credits, TurboTax says:

"Enter any additional property tax paid in 2022"

"Don't enter your home office deduction, $X is already included. You can change this."

So far, we have: Property taxes on your main home $X

I'm unclear whether TurboTax is telling me to *not include / subtract* the amount I claimed from my home office deduction, or if "do not enter" really means just don't put the home office deduction amount itself, but I should put the full property tax amount. I see that TurboTax says "additional" though, which made me wonder whether it's actually supposed to be not-include, and that "do not enter" was bad wording.

For example: Let's say my property taxes are $5,000 total, and I claimed $1,000 of property taxes for my home office deduction. Am I supposed to enter the $4,000 differential here, or the $5,000 total?

TurboTax Self Employed Online

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ThomasM125

When you made your home office entries, you should have entered the entire cost of your property taxes and TurboTax will spit it between your office and itemized deductions. For instance, if your property tax was $2,000, you enter that amount and 25% of it (assuming that was your office use percentage) goes to your office and the rest goes to your itemized deductions on schedule A. If you did it that way, then you don't need to enter your property taxes again, 75% will show up on schedule A, in this example.

If you have other property taxes that have not been entered yet, for instance on another home you own, you can enter that in the itemized deduction section.

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P

pherAuthor

Thanks Thomas — Sorry, I left out a nuance that turned out to be key. The following is completely separate from the office use percentage.

Although I paid property taxes the whole year, I had a home office for only the last few months of year. So, when it came time to enter the property taxes related my home office, I only inserted the amount of property taxes that I paid across that last-few-months period, rather than my actual total paid for the entire year. Continuing the example from my original post, I had put $1,000 (out of my total $5,000 in property taxes) into this field: "If [name] paid real estate (property) taxes on the entire home, enter this amount here and later go to the Deductions & Credits area and review the property tax information."

So now, arriving in the Deductions & Credits section, it says (continuing my example from my post), "Don't enter your home office deduction, $1,000 is already included. You can change this." And then the field "Property taxes on your main home" is pre-populated with the $1,000.

(Side note related to your response: Although the actual amount deductible for the home office would've only been a percentage of that $1,000, you can see that TurboTax ported over the entire $1,000 into the "Property taxes on your main home" field.)

As you can see, TurboTax appears to have populated $1,000 as if that was my full reported property tax from earlier (it did NOT port over just a smaller percentage). So does that mean I now replace it with the full total $5,000 into this Deductions & Credits section? But if that's what I'm supposed to do, why is it saying "$1,000 is already included"?

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ThomasM125

What you need to do is leave the first mortgage information you enter as it is, then make an additonal mortgage interest entry for $4,000, or whatever amount represents the rest of the mortgage interest deduction. The full amount of that one will show on your schedule A and then the interest from the home office entry will be added to it. Just make sure the combined value of your mortgage balances does not exceed the $750,000 (if that applies to you) maximum amount allowed for one hundred percent of your mortgage interest to be deductible. Those numbers entered in TurboTax will not show on your tax return, so you can manipulate the mortgage balances you enter.

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