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June 6, 2019
Question

Deduct property tax twice? Business>Income & Expense>Enter Real Estate Taxes AND Personal>Deductions & Credits>Enter the property taxes you paid.It ends up doubling.

  • June 6, 2019
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If I enter the property tax paid in the two areas where it asks for it, Turbo Tax adds them together.  Am I misreading something?  Under the personal deductions and credit section it says "You reported $xx.xx in property tax on your home office. This amount should be the total property taxes paid on your main residence."  That sentence is not clear if I am supposed to enter the same dollar amount or enter zero since I already entered it under the Business Income & Expense section.

1 reply

June 6, 2019

Enter the total amount of property tax paid in both places (business expenses and personal deductions). 

In my test case, I first entered $20,000 in property tax in the business expenses. I also entered home square footage as 3,000 and office square footage as 300, so the amount of home expenses like property tax to be allocated to the business is 10%.

When I went to personal expenses for Schedule A, the field for Property Taxes was already filled in with $20,000. If so, just leave it. If it's blank, then enter the same amount as you entered back on the business expenses page (i.e. the whole amount, like $20,000 in my example).

When I had reached a stopping point, the amount of the property tax allocated to the business was $2,000 (10% of $20,000), and the amount of property tax allocated to Schedule A was $18,000, just as you would have expected.

In other words, put the total amount paid in both places. If you set up the allocation process correctly in the business section, TurboTax will correctly divide the amount between your business and your itemized deductions.

I am a bit concerned that you said "It ends up doubling" - go back and re-enter the numbers the way I said, and then check the output (this means that you will have to manually compute what your Itemized Deductions should be and what your net Schedule C income should be, for comparison). If you are doing this online, you can see the results on the left at Tax Tools->Tools->View Tax Summary.

If you are doing this with the desktop product, I believe you can see the actual forms (Schedule A and Schedule C) by going to Forms.

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June 6, 2019
Can I add pictures to this thread? I'd love to screne shot what I'm talking about.  I'm using the CD version.  Under the Personal Tab, Under Decutions & Credits it asks that I "Enter the Property Taxes You Paid This includes property taxes for your main home and any other porperty you onwned in 2017.  You reported $5,190 in property taxes on your home office. This amount should be the total property taxes paid on your main residence. Learn More.  Property Taxes 2016 ($4728.92 filled in already) 2017 (blank box)"  Here is where if I put in my $5,190 I get a "congratulations you get a 10k deduction.  So I have to enter zero (even though last year it must have worked to enter the tax here becuase it auto filled last year's amount.  This year if I put in $5190 here it I get the congrats you get a 10k deduction.  I called the QB help and was told to leave it zero.  I just wanted to state one more time that I think this is a problem with the software or the wording.  I would be happy to send you screen shots (via email or whatever works)  Connie