If you rent part of your property, you must divide certain expenses between the part of the property used for rental purposes and the part of the property used for personal purposes as though you actually had two separate pieces of property.

You can deduct a part of some expenses, such as mortgage interest and property taxes, as a rental expense. You can deduct the other part, subject to certain limitations, only if you itemize your deductions. You can also deduct as a rental expense a part of other expenses that normally are nondeductible personal expenses, such as expenses for electricity or painting the outside of your house. You cannot deduct any part of the cost of a single phone line even if your tenants have unlimited use of it.

You do not have to divide the expenses that belong only to the rental part of your property. If you paint a room that you rent, or if you pay premiums for liability insurance in connection with renting a room in your home, your entire cost is a rental expense. If you install a second phone line strictly for your tenants' use, all of the cost of the second line is deductible as a rental expense. You can deduct depreciation, discussed later, on the part of the property used for rental purposes as well as on the furniture and equipment you use for these purposes.

How to divide expenses. If an expense is for both rental use and personal use, such as mortgage interest or heat for the entire house, you must divide the expense between the rental use and the personal use. You can use any reasonable method for dividing the expense. It may be reasonable to divide the cost of some items (for example, water) based on the number of people using them. However, the two most common methods for dividing an expense are one based on the number of rooms in your home and one based on the square footage of your home.

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