The tax forms needed for reporting your rental’s activity depend on the type of legal entity that owns the rental property (individual, partnership, corporation, or LLC).
Individual Ownership – this includes joint ownership with a spouse, tenancy in common, or joint tenancy with rights of survivorship. The forms you’ll need are:
- Form 1040. Form 1040, is filed by all individual taxpayers. Your net rental income or loss subject to tax will appear on line 17 of the first page of Form 1040. Please note that as a landlord with rental activity, you are not allowed to use the simplified Forms 1040A or 1040-EZ.
- Schedule E. Schedule E is an addendum to Form 1040. It has various purposes, but the purpose relevant to you is the reporting of rental income and expenses. The portion of Schedule E marked as “Part I” is the only portion you need to complete. Several important notes to keep in mind: if you own the rental jointly with someone else who is not your spouse, report only the income that you received and the expenses that you incurred. Additionally, keep in mind that if you rented only for part of the year, or you are renting a portion of your personal home, you will need to allocate expenses between rental and non-rental use.
- Form 4562. This is used to calculate depreciation on your rental property, which you can deduct on line 18 of Schedule E.
Partnership/Corporate Ownership – This includes a general or limited partnership, or S corporation.
- Form 1065/1120-S. If you have a partnership, you must use Form 1065, the form a partnership uses to report all of its business operations. An S corporation uses Form 1120-S to report its business operations. Your net rental income or loss will be reported on Schedule K, line 2 of Form 1065 or 1120-S (Schedule K is embedded into those forms).
- Form 8825. This form acts like Schedule E, but for partnerships and S corporations. It is essentially very similar to Schedule E. Make sure to include full amounts of all income and expenses incurred by the partnership or corporation (these will be allocated to each partner or shareholder later).
- Schedule K-1. This form reports the net rental income or loss that is attributable to each partner or shareholder in accordance with that partner or shareholder’s ownership interest. Each partner receives his or her own K-1 and must report the contents of that K-1 on his or her Form 1040, Schedule E, Part II.
Limited Liability Company (LLC) Ownership — A single-member LLC is a disregarded entity for tax purposes, which means that you may file as though you are an individual owner (see above). A multiple-member LLC may choose to be taxed either as a partnership or as an S corporation (see above).