Question

How do I depreciate a new roof for a rental property?

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
January 18, 2021
1 reply
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I put a new roof on my rental property last year. It cost me nearly $20,000 out of pocket. Supposedly, this cannot be counted as a business expense for a deduction. I'm supposed to depreciate it? Can you help me understand how this works? How does it work out in the end, considering I had to pay $20,000 out of pocket for a repair? Also, how would I input this in TurboTax Premier 2019?

M-MTax

Add the roof as an asset the same as if it was the rental property itself. The roof gets depreciated straight-line over 27.5 years.

G

grandpixelAuthor

okay, doesn't really answer my questions though

P

PattiF

The IRS has assigned different depreciation rates to expenses for rental properties based on the life of the product. Appliances would be depreciated over 5 years, and a fence for 15 years.

A roof is depreciated for 27.5 years since it does not need to be replaced with the frequency of an appliance. The total that you paid will be divided by 27.5 and each year the depreciation expense for the roof will be deducted from the rental income.

Also see this article for more information: Rental property

The instructions for entering the information is found here: I have trouble entering new rental roof

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