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Taxpayer Casualty Guide: Preparing for a disaster
What would you do if a natural disaster struck your home? It's a
question that weighs heavily on everyone's minds, especially
with the recent events that have made headlines in the last few
years. Due to the unpredictable nature of these disasters, it is
vital for everyone to have a financial plan in place to handle
the aftermath. Taking such precautions can help to lessen the
financial and emotional burdens that follow in the wake of
disaster. The guideline below will give you the steps to take
both before and after a natural disaster strikes to protect your
home and other valuables and to receive the most from the tax
benefits available to you.
Before a Disaster
There are certain steps you can take before a disaster strikes:
1. Determine if you have appropriate insurance. Homeowner's
insurance and auto insurance should be reevaluated periodically,
every three years if not sooner. Contact various insurance
companies to determine who may provide you with the best rate as
well as determine if you have sufficient coverage. If real
estate prices have gone up significantly in your area or if you
have made improvements to your home, you should reappraise your
home. Make sure you insure your home for 100 percent of its
current replacement value and also ensure the contents of your
home at replacement value. For particular items of value in your
home, obtain a professional appraiser's report. The cost of the
appraisal may be deductible as a miscellaneous itemized
deduction subject to 2% of the adjusted gross income on your
return.
2. Know your basis. Ultimately, you have the burden of proving
to the IRS the amount you claim as a loss on your return. Be
prepared to provide the IRS with documentation to support your
basis. This will be important in determining how much of your
loss you are allowed to deduct on your return. Keep any
documents that can help you establish the original purchase
price of your property, such as your HUD-1 Settlement Statement
or a Bill of Sale. If you make any permanent improvements to
your home (for example, installing storm-shutters or building a
levee to prevent flooding), add the costs to the original price
of your home. Keep your receipts or other documentation whenever
practical, especially for items over $1,000. Your allowable loss
on the tax return is limited to your basis in the property if it
is smaller than the decrease in the fair market value of the
property.
3. Identify your property. Take pictures or videos of your home
and of the contents, especially valuable items, for
identification purposes. Keep an itemized list of your property
whenever administratively reasonable and possible. You can use
the checklist found in IRS Publication 584 or one you have
created yourself. Keep purchase receipts, cancelled checks,
credit card statements, or other proof of the original cost of
the property. You must also prove you own the property or are
responsible to the owner for any damage to the property.
4. Keep important documentation in a safe place. You should make
copies of all your legal and financial documents. The originals
should be kept in a safe deposit box at a bank or other
institution that provides safe deposit boxes. If your home is
destroyed, any documents kept there will probably also be
destroyed. Keep a copy with you in a water-proof bag or
container, or you can place a copy in a fire-proof safe. Another
copy of the documents and the extra key to your safety deposit
box should be provided to an out-of-state relative or friend.
Don't forget to make back-up copies of important information you
keep on your computer's hard drive. These backups can be made to
a diskette, CD, or a removable drive. You may want to keep
certain information handy, such as contact names, accounts,
addresses, and phone numbers, on an internet-based storage
system, such as your internet e-mail account. This way, you can
access important information quickly and conveniently from any
computer wherever you are located.
After a Disaster
There are certain steps you should take after suffering a
casualty loss:
1. Document your loss. Take photographs or videos of the damage
to your property, as well as any repairs done to your property.
Keep receipts for any repair or clean-up work done. Although
they are not considered deductible losses, the repairs or
clean-up work may help you establish the decline in fair market
value of the property, as long as the expenses are incurred to
restore your property to its original condition. Your allowable
loss on the income tax return is limited to the smaller of your
basis in the property or the decrease in the fair market value
of the property. If you have not yet made repairs to your
property, obtain quotes from several reputable contractors for
replacement or repairs necessary. These can be used to
substantiate the loss in fair market value.
You can also hire a professional appraiser to evaluate the
property's fair market value after the disaster, or you may be
able to use your insurance adjuster's appraisal to support the
post-casualty fair market value. To determine the decline in the
fair market value, you also have to prove the fair market value
of your property before the disaster. If obtaining a
professional appraisal before the casualty is not feasible or
cost-effective, you can use comparable classified ads, thrift
store values, or published industry standard market values (such
as the "blue book" values for automobiles) to determine the
pre-disaster fair market value.
Save any police reports or newspaper articles to document the
disaster that affected you if it is not a disaster that is
well-known, such as a presidentially declared disaster. You may
be able to use the inventory list FEMA provides you with for
your loss as support when claiming your casualty loss on
Form
4684, Casualties and Thefts.
2. File a timely insurance claim. If your property is covered by
insurance, you should file a timely insurance claim for
reimbursement of the loss. If you do not file an insurance
claim, the IRS may limit your eligible casualty or theft loss to
the amount that is normally not covered by your insurance, such
as your insurance deductible amount.
3. Spend your insurance reimbursement money wisely. You have two
years to replace any damaged, destroyed, or lost property. If
you meet this time requirement, your insurance reimbursement
will not be taxable, even if it exceeds your basis in the
property. However, if you do not purchase property that is
similar or related in service or use to the property you are
replacing, part of your reimbursement may be taxable. If the
property you are replacing is your home, you may be able to
exclude up to $250,000 (or in some cases $500,000 for couples
filing a joint return) of your taxable gain.
4. Keep track of the payments you receive. Payments you receive
may be either excluded or included in income depending on
whether restrictions were attached to how you spend the money,
or if you received the payments as part of relief provided to
individuals in an area the president has declared is a disaster
area. These payments also affect the calculation of allowable
casualty loss. Keep all types of the Federal Emergency
Management Agency's (FEMA's) reimbursement documentation or
checklists, and any Small Business Administration appraisals, if
applicable.
If your employer, or individuals such as your neighbors,
friends, or relatives, give you cash and do not place
restrictions on how you spend the money, do not include these
cash gifts in your income. These gifts also do not reduce the
amount of your casualty loss, even if you do use this money to
make repairs or replace damaged or destroyed property.
If you receive money from your employer's emergency disaster
fund and you must use that money to rehabilitate or replace
property for which you are claiming a casualty loss deduction,
you must take that money into consideration when calculating the
casualty loss deduction to the extent you used it for that
purpose.
Do not reduce your casualty loss by insurance payments you
receive to cover living expenses that are a direct result of you
either losing the use of your main home because of a casualty or
because government authorities do not allow you access to your
main home after a casualty or threat of one. However, if these
insurance payments are more than the temporary increase in your
living expenses, you must include the excess in your income.
Food, medical supplies, and other forms of relief assistance you
receive are not included in your income and do not reduce your
casualty loss, unless the assistance replaces your lost or
destroyed property. Qualified disaster relief payments you
receive for expenses you incurred as a result of a
presidentially declared disaster are not taxable income to you.
Disaster unemployment assistance payments are unemployment
benefits that are taxable.
Generally, disaster relief grants received under the Disaster
Relief and Emergency Assistance Act are not included in your
income. Qualified disaster relief payments include payments you
receive (regardless of the source) for the reasonable and
necessary expenses incurred for: personal, family, living, or
funeral costs; the repair or rehabilitation of a personal
residence (whether a rented residence or one you own); and the
repair or replacement of the contents of a personal residence.
Understanding Personal Casualty Losses
Generally, if a single casualty involves more than one item of
property, you must calculate the loss on each item separately
then combine the losses to determine the total loss from that
casualty. However, when calculating a casualty loss on personal
use real property, the entire property is treated as one item.
For example, your entire property could include your storage
shed, fence, trees, and shrubs in addition to your home.
Calculate your loss by using the smaller of the following:
- The decrease in fair market value of the entire property (fair
market value is the price for which you could have sold the
property to a willing buyer if neither of you had to sell or buy
the property and both knew all relevant facts)
- The adjusted basis of the entire property (adjusted basis is
usually what you paid for the property, increased or decreased
by various events such as improvements or earlier casualty
losses)
Reduce your loss by any insurance or other reimbursement you
receive or expect to receive.
You must further reduce your loss by $100. This $100 reduction
applies to each casualty or theft event that occurred during the
year, regardless of how many items of property are involved. The
total of all your casualty and theft losses of personal use
property for the year must then be reduced by 10% of your
adjusted gross income. The balance that remains after making
these reductions is the amount of your deductible casualty or
theft loss of personal use property.
Personal casualty and theft losses are reported on Form 4684,
Section A and entered on Schedule A. You must be able to itemize
deductions on your federal income tax return to be able to claim
your loss.
This article is provided by Jackson Hewitt.
http://www.jacksonhewitt.com
About the author:
R.L. Fielding has been a freelance writer for 10 years, offering
her expertise and skills to a variety of major organizations in
the education, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, financial
services, and manufacturing industries. She lives in New Jersey
with her dog and two cats and enjoys rock climbing and
ornamental gardening.
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