Rental Income is considered passive income unless you are a real estate professional. Passive losses are generally limited to passive income; so if you have passive income, you can offset the losses to net to zero, but you can't report the negative net loss as a reduction of your income. That is the general rule. There is an allowance, taught to me as "the little man's rule", wherein, if your MAGI (modified adjusted gross income) is less than $100,000 you can deduct $25,000 in losses. For every $2 your MAGI is over $100,000, the allowance is reduced by $1 and is completely phased out by a MAGI of $150,000.
Looking at your forms, your accountant calculated your net loss across all properties as $38,873. He does not consider you a real estate professional, so all is passive. Now do you get to take the $25,000 allowance? Well, the MAGI is 119,241 so you are over the $100,000. Since you are between $100K and $150K, you get a partial amount of the $25,000; calculated as $15,376. The remaining unallowed loss is carried forward to be used to offset future passive income.
