Quote:

But here's the fun part. Last year, they assessed that the property was about 2/3 the total value, and the house was 1/3. This year the property lost a couple thousand in value, but now they'd assessed that the property was worth 1/3 of the total, and the house was 2/3.

WTF?

Well, IANACPA, but it would seem like they were doing you a big favor. You can depreciate the building over X number of years, but you can't depreciate the land. Depreciation shields income from income tax, and since it's your home, you don't have to pay capital gains on quite a bit of it if you do sell.

Matthew