When you rent a bedroom in your home and that rental unit creates a tax loss, can you deduct the loss?

Do you have a bedroom rental in your home? If so, make sure to know the five possible federal income-tax outcomes from such a rental.

If you want to rent one, two, or 20 bedrooms in your home, you need to know five sections of the tax law to obtain your rightful tax benefits. This is an area where tax knowledge is power. Without the knowledge, you could create a very unsatisfactory tax result.

Because you are a small-business owner, you have a higher chance of an IRS audit. In an audit, the IRS will try to impose accuracy-related penalties on top of any unpaid taxes that it discovers. What you need to know is that the penalties are not automatic. You can beat them with one of the right arguments.

If you want to rent one, two, or twenty bedrooms in your home, you need to avoid one big trap and navigate two sets of rules to obtain the tax benefits you likely were hoping for when you thought of this rental activity. This is an area where tax knowledge is power. Without the knowledge, you could create a very unsatisfactory tax result.

Personal use of your bed and breakfast includes use by your tax-law defined relatives, including those relatives who pay fair rent.