I didn't know I HAD to take depreciation

[Stanley Crawford]

I would like to blame Turbotax for this mess but I know it my fault.  First let me explain how I got in this mess and hopefully someone has some good advice on getting out of it. I started buying buy and hold rentals in 2011. I bought and rehabbed 8 but I sold 2 in 2017..These are all very cheap propeties with an average basis of $18K after repairs that rent for around $550 each . I knew back in 2012 that my taxes were getting complicated but I didnt know where to get tax help I mean I went to HR Block but the lady there seemed to know less than me about business taxes and was talking about $2000 and up.(about 10 percent of my profits) So I started using Turbotax and I thought everthing was going fairly well. Until a couple of days ago when I watched a podcast and found out that depreciation was actually manadtory ie the IRS will assume you took it even If you did not. Turbotax does not tell you this and I was trying to keep it simple and I never took any. So now for the last 24 hours I have been trying to figure out how to fix it...Some tax gurus say to amend returns others talk about a 3115 but I cant even get close to figuring out how to fill that out. I know I need a CPA and I have an appointment with one but I live out in the sticks and i am not sure he is going to know much about real estate taxes himself....Unfortunatly I have a complicated tax return without the kind of income that makes a 2 or 3K per year CPA make sense. I only make about 50K per year with 20K coming from the rentals..The CPA websites I have seen seem to be geared for investers with a lot more income.