I’m excited about this journey that I am starting to pursue and I look forward to working with some of you in the near future.

I’m a W-2 employee in a high income tax state. I have rehabbed a rental property out of state, and am renting it out to long-term tenants. I was wondering if there are any deductions that I can take against my W-2 inc...

This detailed, thorough write-up is an extremely useful, if unsurprising, review.

My first thought is use this time to understand the quality of living that your future tenants will inherent if they rent from you. 

Why doesn't the RE commission in Illinois simply upload all of their standard RE forms to their website and allow anyone and everyone to download??

There are a lot of local RE meetups here in Pittsburgh like ACRE, SWIG, WIRED, Gather, REI on Tap, and Broke to FI.

In summary, do you think it's a good idea for me to partner with someone for my first deal, put in some or all of the money, take a smaller return, but gain knowledge and confidence to start on my own in the future?

Obviously, I don't know anything about your finances, so for all I know, you may have a few million in the bank, and this project is just a fun experiment that wouldn't even be a drop in the bucket if it all turns south...but, regardless, you'll want to model out what would happen if this project crashes and burns...As you may know, managing a rental in a D to F area (or even a C area) is usually not recommended (for many reasons), and funding a rehab with credit cards is also usually not recommended (again, for many reasons). ...even highly experienced investors often won't touch anything lower than C grade because of all the difficulties of managing and re-selling them...If you're dead set on rehabbing the place and keeping it, I'd strongly suggest studying up thoroughly on the local rental market and tenant pool (e.g.; rent medians and lower and upper bounds, typical days on market before securing a tenant, local vacancy rates, tenants' typical income, education level, employment opportunities, credit, and rental history).

I'm concerned now and for the future loosely sharing plans that have costed me and my partners a good amount of money.  

If your all-in cost to build for below market value and you are able to place quality tenants, then you should be able to leverage the completed project in a way that allows you to pull out some of your initial investment tax deferred to fund future investments while keeping the rental income and future appreciation.I am a CPA by day and advise many developers on tax strategies.