Every Landlord's Tax Deduction Guide

This book was well written and organized, it explained things in an easy to read manner. Most of all it taught me so much. I purchased my first single-family rental and spent a great deal on repairs in order to get it available for lease. I have always done my own accounting using Quickbooks as well as Quicken but I had so many tax questions. When I sought out a CPA I was told that it would cost me $200 per hour for questions, or $500 to $1500 to do my taxes. Ouch! This book is very complex but it is also very detailed and uses examples which help a lot. I can see now why CPA's get paid so well as there is a lot to learn. I feel so much more confident now as I go forward, so many questions have been answered. Thanks for a great tax book on rentals!

Very informative on deductions you can take to lower your tax liability.

I purchased my first rental properties in late 2012. Then I purchased this book. Wish I had done it the other way around. After reading it, I realized dealing with the IRS while being a landlord was much more complicated then I ever imagined. The book is an excellent source of information. It takes a very complicated rules and regulations process and simplifies it as much as possible. It uses examples and charts to help illustrate major points. I used tax software to help me do my 2012 taxes, but would not have been successful without constantly referring to the book's examples. One small criticism - A lot of text is devoted to tax laws for real-estate professionals. I believe this information would have been better placed in a separate book. I strongly recommend this book to anyone thinking about becoming a landlord.

The author does a very good job explaining how to document and record expenses that may be deductible. The book is written in the clear Nolo style that will not overly burden the reader with technical descriptions. I found the information to be clear and it helped me to prepare the correct documents to present to my CPA. Some expenses are deductible and some must be spread out over the span of ownership and the author does a great job of explaining the differences. A very good explanation of depreciation methods is also found in this book.

I bought my first rental house in 2012 and have continuing buying until it is now a fantastic business. I knew nothing about rental property, taxes, rules or even where to start looking. I found this book a few years ago and have just ordered the newest edition. It is my real estate bible. The information has proved invaluable. If you aren't using graduated depreciation, you probably aren't maximizing depreciation benefits available. How to know what can be deducted, what has to be depreciated, and what are and are not qualified deductions? It is all here. If you depend on a tax preparer to know, you probably aren't getting your maximum benefit. I cannot recommend this book strongly enough if you have rental property of any kind. A must read, over and over again as it is impossible to absorb it all at once. I refer to it continually and share information from it with other landlords. It is written in plain English, not legal jargon by an attorney who is willing to demystify real estate law and IRS rules for the rest of us. Thank you Stephen Fishman!

As a small landlord, I'm always looking for helpful and practical advice, particularly if it helps with taxes, expenses or property management. I had planned to share this review before April 15, in the hope that it would prove helpful to other small landlords. Unfortunately, as it got closer to April 15, I ran out of time! So for those of you who did get extensions or are looking into help for the next tax season, I'm hoping that you'll have time to read Every Landlord's Tax Deduction Guide. I've been summarizing particularly helpful chapters for myself and my partners. But it's the sort of book that's helpful to read through once and keep on hand as specific incidents occur. Every Landlord's Tax Deduction Guide is divided into 20 chapters. The Guide begins with an explanation of how landlords are taxed and list which taxes specifically apply to landlord investors and those that actively manage their properties ("business owner"). The guide then discusses the requirements that must be met before operating expenses can be considered deductible and a discussion of the operating expenses that are not deductible. The next chapters discuss how the IRS treats repairs to the property and compares their tax treatment to that of improvements to the property. Subsequent chapters discuss in detail the more complicated deduction of depreciation, interest, start-up expenses, travel expenses, car and transportation expenses, labor expenses (differentiating between employees and independent contractors), as well as casualty and theft losses. What I particularly appreciated about the Guide is that it flags the IRS forms and publications that are relevant to specific complicated situations, such that I know what to research and I need to file when specific situations occur. Also much appreciated are the chapters on record keeping and accounting as well as the final chapter which covers information from the IRS and various online resources. Every Landlord's Tax Deduction Guide is well worth the $35 that I'd paid for it. I am encouraging my landlord friends to get copies for themselves. ISBN-10: 1413319270 - Paperback $35 Publisher: NOLO; Tenth Edition edition (November 29, 2013), 536 pages.

I will admit, I have not finished this yet and will update when done, so far this is a great book, easy to understand and read. I have read the first 6 chapters and some important ones at the end starting with Chp15. The book is straight forward tax information, no "you can do it" motivation or "how to be a landlord" sections. Just the tax ma'am. Very well organized. Each chapter concentrates on a subject, like "Landlord Tax Classifications" and "Repairs". It describes the basics and the subtleties and then presents real world tax rulings that help clarify the regulations. I recommend this to every landlord, even if you have an accountant. Buy it and deduct it as a business expense! (as the book says)

Bought my first rental this year and was dreading taxes. I anticipated adding a rental into the mix would be a challenge, which made me apprehensive. I thought about having a pro do my taxes this year, but didn't want to spend the $300-$400 to have someone else do what I should and, hopefully, couldbe doing myself. Since I decided to take a stab at doing my taxes this year, I decided I would buy this book to aid me in what I thought was a nightmare. Long story short, this is the best book I've ever purchased. This is the only book I've bought that has paid for itself several times over. The information in here has given me so much insight on what I can deduct and how to do it. I did my taxes using TurboTax, which is pretty decent software. However, TurboTax is like a cake without frosting and this book is the frosting that makes it so much better. The book explains things in good detail that TurboTax summarizes. TurboTax tries to make things easy and simple, while this book explains why easy and simple isn't always the best or beneficial. Here's an example: TurboTax says you should use your property tax bill to determine your basis for depreciation. Property tax bills are notorious for lowballing values. The book says this and goes on to explain that there are several ways of determining your basis. I happened to use my own calculation, which nets me more depreciation. I used swiftestimator to calc my replacement value/basis. Costs $12, but very much worth it. I couldn't be more pleased with this book. I think you'll feel the same. Don't hesitate on this one.

Interesting but not applicable to the UK in any way. AMAZON must be on a parallel universe to advertise this without flagging this in any way. I found it interesting, but if you expect any useful input applicable to the UK rental market you will be sorely disapointed.

Did not think to look that this was for American taxes. Waste of money ordering as it cost me to return

The book is highly valuable and is presented in a straightforward manner that is accessible to everyone. you don't have to be a bookkeeper or tax assessor to understand it. However, there is a significant amount of repetition throughout, leading to unnecessary length. It could have been condensed into 300 pages instead of 450. Despite this drawback, the book remains informative and worthwhile.