Hurricane Loss Tax Relief

If you had ANY losses from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma or Marie in 2017 you may be entitled to a tax deduction.

The casualty and theft loss deduction helps taxpayers who have unreimbursed losses. Ordinarily, taxpayers figure their deduction by starting with the amount their insurance doesn’t cover. Taxpayers must reduce each personal casualty or theft loss by $100 and then reduce their total personal casualty and theft losses by 10 percent of their adjusted gross income. Then, they may only deduct the part of the loss that exceeds these limits. However, if a taxpayer sustained losses due to Hurricanes Harvey, Irma or Maria, the 2017 Act provides a different calculation for many victims that allows a deduction for the entire portion of the disaster loss not covered by insurance that exceeds $500.

Casualty and theft losses are generally deducted on Schedule A, Itemized Deductions, but, you may choose instead to increase your standard deduction by your qualified net hurricane disaster loss if you don’t itemize other deductions on Schedule A. This makes it so that almost all taxpayers in the disaster areas who had any damage would benefit from this.

Information from IRS.gov.

If you have any questions about this or any other tax topic please contact us.