Tax question about rental gains/losses

[John Morgan]

If I own rental properties and some houses show profit, but the others lose money due to repairs etc., do they all balance out? Will I be taxed on the sum of all my properties? I own 6 rentals and had to dump a ton of $ into four of them this year causing a loss for the year on all four of those. However, two rentals did good and made profit. Overall, I probably broke even when all of them are added up with their losses and profits combIned together. I just didn’t know if I could use losses on some of them to offset the profits on others. It was a bad year for me! Murphy’s law hit me like crazy the last 4 months.

[Basit Siddiqi]

@John Morgan

You are eligible to offset rental income with losses from other rental properties.

You will need to determine whether or not the repairs are actually deductible. If they are repairs they will be deductible. However, it they are improvements; they may or may not be deductible in the current year.

It is close to the end of the tax year. You may want to reach out to an accountant/CPA to determine what the actual effect your rentals will have on your tax return.