Schedule E is one of the many schedules that are part of the IRS form 1040. Taxpayers use Schedule E to report income and expenses from supplemental income. In contrast to earned income, supplemental income is not received through employment. Examples of supplemental income include rentals, royalties, and income from S corporations and partnerships. Landlords need to file a schedule E with their form 1040 every tax year to report income (or loss) from rental property.
Income on Schedule E
Schedule E is organized into five parts. Part I is the section focusing on income or loss from rental income. In this section, the primary income to complete falls on line 3: “Rents Received”. On this line, landlords report the rental income received from tenants for each identified property.
Expenses on Schedule E
To complete schedule E, landlords need to classify expenses based on 15 categories provided by the IRS. These expense categories include advertising, cleaning and maintenance, and insurance, just to name a few. In contrast to the simplicity of the rent reporting line, for expenses, landlords need to select a category for each expense for each property.
Completing schedule E is reasonably straightforward. In fact, it becomes very easy to complete if landlords use accounting software to track rental income and expenses. One in particular, RentalIncomeExpense.com, provides a schedule E helper report that mimics the schedule E. At tax time, landlords can provide this report to accountants for easy tax preparation. Best of all, RentalIncomeExpense.com is free!