A log fails on its entries, not on its total. The Tax Court has rejected logs that comfortably exceeded the hour thresholds because the individual lines were rounded, vague, or implausible for the task described. The fix is mechanical: five fields, real minutes, and a description a stranger could picture. Here are ten entries of the kind owners actually write, rewritten.
The five fields
Every line should carry:
- Date — the day the work happened.
- Property — never "the rentals." One property per entry.
- Task — what you specifically did, in enough detail that someone who has never seen the property can picture it.
- Duration — actual minutes. Start and end times if you have them.
- Corroboration — the receipt, message, photo or invoice that independently places you there. Optional on paper, decisive in practice.
Treas. Reg. §1.469-5T(f)(4) permits participation to be established by any reasonable means, and says contemporaneous daily time reports are not required. What the cases have added is that a summary produced after the fact, unsupported by anything, is not a reasonable means. The entries below are the difference.
Ten rewrites
1. Maintenance
- Before:
Maintenance — 3h - After:
2026-06-14 · Lakeview cabin · Replaced kitchen faucet cartridge, resealed base, tested for leaks · 1h 10m · hardware receipt 6/14, photo of finished install
Three hours for a faucet reads as padded. Seventy minutes with a receipt reads as true.
2. Guest communication
- Before:
Guest stuff — 1h - After:
2026-06-15 · Lakeview cabin · Responded to 4 booking inquiries; sent check-in instructions to Novak party; resolved thermostat question mid-stay · 35m · platform message thread 6/15
3. The supply run
- Before:
Shopping — 2h - After:
2026-06-16 · Lakeview cabin · Bought linens, coffee, paper goods for restock; delivered to property · 55m shopping + 40m travel logged separately · store receipt 6/16
Shopping entries are the ones courts have singled out. If a log shows hours for an errand that plainly takes minutes, every other entry in the log becomes negotiable. Where the trip is also a drive, log the travel on its own line — see the post on whether travel time counts.
4. Contractor day
- Before:
Contractor — 4h - After:
2026-06-20 · Lakeview cabin · Walked scope with painter, selected finishes, inspected first coat and flagged two areas for rework · 1h 25m · contractor invoice, punch-list photo
In Hairston the court had little patience for hours claimed while a taxpayer was present at work performed by others. Supervision means decisions and inspection, and the entry should say which.
5. Turnover
- Before:
Turnover — 4h - After:
2026-06-21 · Lakeview cabin · Post-checkout turnover: stripped and laundered linens, cleaned kitchen and both baths, restocked consumables, staged and photographed · 2h 45m · booking calendar checkout 6/21, before/after photos
6. Pricing
- Before:
Reviewed performance — 2h - After:
2026-06-22 · Lakeview cabin · Adjusted nightly rates and minimum stay for July weekends after reviewing June occupancy · 40m
The "before" version is investor-flavoured and invites the argument that it does not count at all. The "after" version is a management decision that happened to use data. See the post on investor hours.
7. Snow, yard, seasonal
- Before:
Snow removal — 1h(repeated eleven times) - After:
2026-01-08 · Lakeview cabin · Cleared driveway and deck steps after 6in overnight · 1h 35m/2026-01-09 · Lakeview cabin · Cleared refreeze at driveway apron · 25m
Hairston featured a run of one-hour entries and a cluster of snow-removal hours packed into a few days. Weather-driven work is genuinely irregular; a log that shows it as uniform looks manufactured.
8. Vendor coordination
- Before:
Phone calls — 1h - After:
2026-07-02 · Lakeview cabin · Called two HVAC contractors for quotes on condenser, booked Tuesday service window, notified guest of access · 30m · call log, guest message
9. Bookkeeping
- Before:
Admin — 2h - After:
2026-07-05 · Lakeview cabin · Reconciled June payouts and expenses, filed receipts, updated hours log · 45m
10. The one to delete
- Before:
On call for guests — 8h - After: nothing. Availability is not participation; log the minutes you actually spent responding. The post on on-call time covers why.
The patterns to avoid
Reading through rejected logs, the same four things recur:
- Uniform durations. Entry after entry at exactly one hour. Real work does not round.
- Implausible time for the task. The entry an examiner reads out loud. One of these can discredit three hundred honest lines.
- Vagueness. "Property management, 3h" tells a court nothing, and the taxpayer carries the burden.
- Written all at once. Identical handwriting for a whole month, or a file created the week before the return, invites the finding that the log was reconstructed. The contemporaneous versus reconstructed guide covers what to do if that is your situation.
The weekly review
Five minutes on a Sunday: open the week, and for each entry ask whether a stranger could picture the task and whether the duration matches it. Fix anything that fails, while you still remember. Tools help only to the extent they make that review easy — STR Tracker requires the date, property, task and duration on every entry so a blank-fielded line cannot be saved in the first place, but the judgement is yours.
The test to apply is not "is this defensible." It is: if an examiner read this entry aloud, would I want to explain it? If not, rewrite it now, while the truth is still available.