Question

Rental Repair expense vs. capitalization

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
April 9, 2022
2 replies
0 views

I recently repaired/replaced driveway and parking lot on a 4plex rental property.

Cost was $5700. Is this a capital improvement, or repair expense? How should

I report it?

Tom

The repair and replacement of a parking lot and driveway for your rental property is considered an improvement that would be depreciated.

To enter this in your tax return:

To enter your rental improvements, simply follow the directions to enter your rental income and expenses. At some point, you'll come across the Rental Summary screen. Select Start next to Asset/Depreciation and follow the onscreen instructions. We'll figure out which depreciation method works best in your favor.

This TurboTax Help article explains the depreciation of rental property and improvements.

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Carl11_2

Employee

I'm not sure, but I do believe that driveway/parking lots are depreciated over 15 years. I may be wrong, as I could be confusing that with SCH C business property.

A

Anonymous_

Employee

See https://www.irs.gov/publications/p527#en_US_2020_publink1000219079

Carl11_2

Employee

@Anonymous_ that doesn't specify driveways directly. I do recall a few years back there was an IRS pub that had an extensive list that was significantly more than shown in pub 946 Appendix B. Now 946 Appendix B doesn't specifically list driveways/parking lots except for 80.0 Theme & Amusement Parks.

My memory could be a bit rusty, but I could swear I saw something years back for driveways that specifically and explicitly related to rental property for both business and residential, and it was 15 years; whereas for Theme & Amusement Parks it's 12.5 years.