You should have copies of your previously filed returns. When we first started doing ours, we used the previous year as a guideline and recreated it with TT. We've done our own (which are more complicated than average) ever since.
Make sure you buy a robust version of TT. We have "Home and Business" and that has been pretty good at handling business and rental income. I'm pretty sure it handled RSUs that we had several years ago as well.
Thanks - and sorry, I left one thing out. I've ALWAYS used turbotax, but its my first year with RE income. So I decided to use an accountant (who agreed, and then later said nevermind because he was too busy).
I used TurboTax when we've purchased rentals. If everything else is about the same, except for the addition of rental property, I think you should be able to handle it. Just be sure to remember a couple things-----
1) Depreciation of the property is based on the structure, not the sales price. You'll be using this same number for 27.5 years or whenever you sell, so start out right. You want to subtract out the land value from the sale price, which you can look up from the tax assessment.
2) I can't remember the rules, so I might not have this right and hopefully someone will correct me. I think all the costs before the date it is advertised for rent, will be included as your original basis. This would be closing cost, purchase price, repairs, painting, roof, etc. Everything after the advertised date counts as an expense for that year, but big ticket items might have to be amortized. I think if the total is under 10k for the year or a percentage of purchase price, then you can just deduct it that year instead of amortizing.
