tax utilities - Landlord Forum thread 360638

tax utilities by Olga on July 9, 2020 @17:11

Really need information. Couldn't find it in Google. I live on the ground floor and renting apartments on the second and third floors. Paying all utilities. No way to separate electricity or water pipes. For several years when I filed taxes annul utility bill were calculated dividing between all people in the house. Including myself. And tenants portion was deducted. This year I was said the bill will be divided by square footage.
It doesn't make sense to me. Now I supposed to pay for tenants portion. Who deals with the same problem? Please help.

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Re: tax utilities by lpadave on July 10, 2020 @05:51	[ Reply ]

Not sure I'm understanding your problem. Are you paying utilities then dividing amounts each month and billing tenants their portions ?? or you pay utilities and utilities are included in fixed rent amount ?? If you as the property owner are paying electric, water and sewer in full for the entire building, then you deduct those amounts as an expense against your rental income for the building. Technically depending on how you handle your personal occupancy in one of the units, your ''percentage'' would not be deductible. To get WAY into the weeds, I suppose you could deduct a basis for your in home office or your kitchen table, or the number of hours you are working. Square footage vs number of people vs number of bedrooms all seem to be viable, so long as same is applied yr to yr consistently. Using number of people does seem the fairest way to judge consumption,....but it changes, which complicates it. Perhaps someone knows a new law or ruling that the taxing authorities are now applying / following ??? ....or is it just your ''tax guy'' (gal) telling you how they want to do it ??