owned my home for 5 years, but never reported any of it on my taxes. is it too late?

the only thing you would have deducted on your tax returns is the mortgage interest and property taxes you paid on the home

and you can amend your 2007 return to include those itemized deductions your are entitled to claim if you do it by 4/15/11

if you say you got refunds anyway, it only means you had enough of your own money withheld to cover your tax liability, ie you allowed the gov't an interest free loan of your money all year

amend the 2007 asap, then your 2008 and probably your 2009 as well

and yes, you screwed yourself out of a larger refund

this question was typed in all lower case.

Use of punctuation and capitalization make your posting more readable and comprehensible.

You file a tax return, to get hopefully a tax refund.

You don't report a down payment.

Most home owners itemize their taxes, filing a schedule A. www.irs.gov schedule A

This allows you to deduct mortgage interest and real estate taxes paid in determining your taxable income, rather than taking the standard deduction.

You are NOT required to itemize, and not all home owners receive much benefit from itemizing, but for others is has a big impact. Most home owners cannot benefit from itemizing their first, partial, year of ownership.

You can go back over the last 3 years and file amended returns, 1040X, and see if it would make much if any difference. Can't go back further than that. The easiest way to file amended returns is with the same service or software you used the first time around, but however you do it, you need copies of the returns filed each year. Jackson Hewitt or Block can help you with this.

If your mortgage interest, property taxes, and any other itemized deductions were greater than the standard deduction amount for any of the past 3 years (2007 - 2009) you can file amended returns on Form 1040-X for each year and might get some money back.

The down payment does not do anything for you on your taxes.

Anything from 2006 and earlier is lost for good as you only have 3 years from the filing deadline to claim a refund.

First, the down payment is not tax deductible. You might have been able to deduct a portion of the closing costs. However, the statute of limitations for filing is 3 years after the date your tax return was due, which pretty much means that the costs of closing are beyond the statute of limitations.

As it stands now, you can file 2007, 2008, and 2009 amended returns if you desire (had you done an amended return earlier - your could have filed for 2006 by April 15). Your best bet is to sit down and determine if there are any differences between what you did file and what you could have filed.

You won't get any benefit from the down payment, but you can claim the interest paid and the real estate taxes paid. You need to take your past three years of returns to a H & R Block office. You will need all the supporting documentation for those years and they can amend them for you. You will probably get money back. They have what is called the "Second Look" for only $29. That allows them to input all of your data in the system and see if they can help. If so they will recommend amending your returns up to three years.

Down payment does not matter - there is no deduction for that. You can, however, deduct the mortgage interest and property taxes and this should reduce your taxes. However, you can only change your tax return for three years going backwards if you are owed money. So you will need to complete a 1040X for 2007, 2008 and 2009 and mail them in to the IRS in separate envelopes.

The only tax effect that I'm aware of is the interest you pay is tax deductable. So for example, if you pay a mortgage of $1,000 a month and say, $750 is interest, then you can multiply that by 12 = ($9,000) You can then subtract that $9,000 from your taxable income, which will give you a new taxable income. It can save you a few thousand a year. As far as going back 5 years, I can't really help with that but it'd be worth have a tax account take a look.

Don't worry, IRS will not come after you. It is not required that you report home owned by you on your tax return.

You can claim mortgage tax deduction and property tax deduction on your tax return. Mortgage tax deduction is itemized deduction. You will take this deduction only when your itemized deductions are more than the standard deduction.

If your itemized deductions were more than the standard deduction, you can file amended tax return for 2007, 2008 and 2009.

Not reported any of WHAT? Just owning a home by itself does not generate any tax liability. If you're asking how to amend your prior year tax returns to itemize deductions and claim mortgage interest and property taxes paid, you do that by submitting an amended tax return (IRS Form 1040X) for each year.

If you had points, you can annualize them over the life of the loan. But the only open years are 2007, 2008 and 2009 since you did not owe before then.

See Sch A and 1040X at www.irs.gov

Helen, EA in PA