Canada rental property depreciation

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bayarea_dreamer
Posts: 9
Joined: Sun Oct 07, 2018 5:03 am

Canada rental property depreciation

Post by bayarea_dreamer »

We are currently living in California but we have a rental property in Canada - Calgary. We want to calculate the depreciation for this to fill in the US tax returns (Form 1040 Schedule E). That will mean we will need to distinguish between the:

- price of the land and
- the price of the building on top of it because depreciation can only be claimed on the building.

But unfortunately neither the Calgary property tax document, nor the insurance document from our insurers specifies the difference between these two. So how do we calculate the difference? FYI when we bought the property in 2016 we paid $460000 for it.
nelsona
Posts: 18314
Joined: Wed Oct 27, 2004 2:33 pm
Location: Nowhere, man

Re: Canada rental property depreciation

Post by nelsona »

A local realtor would be able to give you a reasonable estimate, in writing, as to the land's value at the time of purchase.

Remember that if your depreciation on your US return lowers your net rental income to zero, it would be wise to CCA the property on your CDn return to reduce the new rental income on your CDn 216 return.
nelsona non grata. Non pro. Please Search previous posts, no situation is unique as you might think. Happy Browsing :D
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