Question

Rhonda was sleeping soundly in her bedroom one night when all of sudden she was awakened by an enormous boom that seemed to come from her living room. She ran out to see what had happened and found a Pontiac Trans-Am crashed through her window, drove all the way through her living room and was now stuck in the kitchen. Fortunately, the car did not hit any load bearing support walls, so her house was not in danger of falling down. When she found the driver still sitting in his car, all he could tell her was that “Smokey was after him and she had to hide him somewhere”. Thinking he was a bit crazy, she called the police instead. Eventually the driver got out of the car and ran off into the night. Rhonda eventually got her house repaired at a cost of $45,000. She elected not to make an insurance claim so that her future premiums would not rise. To cover the costs, she tracked down the driver of the Trans Am who sent her $30,000 to help cover the costs. Rhonda’s AGI for the year of the accident was $290,000 and she does itemize her deductions. What will be the amount of Rhonda’s casualty loss for the year of the accident?

$0

$15,000

$30,000

$15,900

$45,000

Answer 1

$0

Explanation: For the purpose of claiming a casualty loss, the loss must be reported to the Insurance company in a timely manner. Since, in this case, Rhonda has not reported the damage to the insurance company and instead tracked down the driver and recovered $30000 from him against the repairing cost of $45000, the same does not qualify for the casualty loss. The loss should have been reported to the Insurance company and the amount received from insurance company against the loss incurred should have been deducted from the total loss which would have resulted into the casualty loss.