Somewhere in Augusta, Georgia, a homeowner hands over a set of keys in early April, drives to a relative’s place for the week, and comes back to a five-figure cheque that will never appear on a tax return.
None of that is a dodge. It sits in Section 280A of the Internal Revenue Code, the provision governing when a home used as a residence gets treated as rental property and when it doesn’t. Subsection (g) is the bit homeowners care about: let the place out for fewer than 15 days in a year and the money is excluded from gross income. The IRS says the same thing in Topic 415, its plain-English guidance on residential and vacation property, which tells owners not to report that income and not to claim rental expenses against it either.
No form, no schedule, no line on the return.
How the day count works
Fifteen is where everything changes…