<prompt> Human: My girlfriends mom has a vacation home in the Florida Keys. She is an 86 year old widow who lives on annuities and a trust that was set up by her late husband. This home as well as the one that she lives in now and the trust will go to my girlfriend upon her death. The house is very rarely used, typically only once or twice a year for a few days. We have decided that it would be in her best interest to sell the house however we are waiting for the market to recover so that she can get closer to full value on it since it is a waterfront property. In the meantime shes spending a significant portion of her income on maintenance and taxes and has put over 60,000 into the house in the last year to replace the roof and has upgraded the windows to hurricane proof. The plan right now is to rent the house out until the market recovers sufficiently so that she can sell it for close to its true value. Would it be best to set up some sort of Corporation in order to write off the improvements and repairs to the house? Does anyone have any other suggestions with regards to how to keep this asset from becoming more of a liability? We would greatly appreciate any and all advice and thoughts from this community. Thanks!  <response>: I dont think you have to set up a corporation to write off costs related to a rental property, in fact it might increase your tax burden to do it that way due to the nature of corporate taxes.I think she can write off repairs on her personal taxes if the property is truly a rental property used by the owner less than 10 days of the year, and some other qualifications. I dont think you can deduct improvements from your taxes aside from depreciation. 