Taxes for 2024 - First rental property purchases in August 2024

[Eli Jerman]

So I am wondering if I can still use Turbo Tax to do my taxes this year. I am a single individual, no dependents, only live and work in PA. My thought was that I would need a tax guy/accountant to file for this year now that I purchased a duplex. I have a duplex I closed on in August of 2024. I am currently living in one of the units and renting the other one. I obviously want to get the best tax benefits and write off the expenses for the house and repairs I have done. Is that still something I can do in turbo tax? Or will I miss out on writing off some of the expenses? Also I am living in the property but my registered address is still at my other home. I have not moved my address on my license. 

[Paul Novak]

I understand where you are coming from as we always did our taxes on turbo tax as well until we purchased rental properties.  I am not a tax professional trying to sell you my services I am simply providing my perspective.  I am the type of person that is normally looking to save a money to increase my investing so the thought of paying someone to do my taxes when we could do them ourselves didn't make sense.  That was right up until we started purchasing rentals.

We have an LLC so we actually pay $400 per year for our LLC to file and then another $150 for us to have our personal taxes done. We reached out to other contacts we have locally that also do rentals to get a recommendation and I am glad I did. Not only does our CPA do our taxes but he is always available throughout the year to answer tax questions we have which has been helpful. Having him easily saves us more in deductions every year then we pay for our taxes and I can sleep well at night knowing that a professional is looking everything over before we he files them. It's up to you but I would recommend getting a CPA.