I rent out my basement of my own house (I live upstairs, it's my primary residence). Can I claim a part of my mortgage interest, property tax and utility as expenses?

[TurboTaxJeffrey · Accepted solution]

Yes, definitely, you are able to claim a portion of the mortgage interest etc against the rental income.  Use the square footage of the apartment divided by the total square footage of your house for the percentage allocation.

[weida_hu]

Thank you, Jeffrey. But for CCA stuff (furniture, furnace, water heater, appliances), do you think I should choose not to report the expense because of the future tax implications?

[TurboTaxJeffrey]

If you own the appliances, sure, claim CCA.  You aren't likely to sell those for more than you purchased them...so any recapture issues should be small, if any.  Claiming depreciation on the value of the house, however, I would not recommend...as you could have a large CCA recapture in one year, if/when you sell the property, and that could boost your income drastically for one year.  Also, as long as you don't claim CCA on the house, then you don't lose your Primary Residence exemption if and when you do sell your home.

[Sabeena-Butt]

How to share with your spouse in Turbo Tax?

[montgomerykennet]

it is not clear where one enters the portions amount for these (interest, utilities, etc.) on Turbo Tax

[Sabeena-Butt]

When you use Easy Steps method, at Rental Property Identification - select your property from drop down menu and this will pre-fill information for your spouse.  It took me long to find out :=)