469: How To Work the Tax System Like a Billionaire
Get Rich Education
English - October 02, 2023 08:00 - 41 minutes - 47.3 MB - ★★★★★ - 587 ratingsInvesting Business Careers passiveincome business creatingwealth income kiyosaki money real realestate realestateinvesting rich Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Learn how to permanently reduce your tax burden. The greatest tax breaks for real estate investors are revealed.
But first, home prices are permanently elevated because they’re larger and with more amenities than they had in the 1970s.
Today’s homes have vaulted ceilings, multiple fireplaces, granite countertops and more square footage. I describe.
John Hyre, the Tax Reduction Lawyer, joins us for the first time.
The top federal income tax rate is 37%. Learn where it’s headed next.
On your short-term rentals (like Airbnbs), sometimes you can reduce your taxes by legally stating that it’s a “hotel”.
Your rent income is taxed at less than your day job (W-2) income. Rent income is not burdened with social security and self-employment tax.
Learn exactly how tax depreciation lowers taxable income for real estate investors.
You’ll legally never pay any capital gains tax with a 1031 Exchange. We review how.
Will the 1031 Exchange go away?
John tells us how to get $100K tax-free out of your property—without doing an exchange.
Timestamps:
The direction of the marginal income tax rate [00:08:19]
Discussion about the current marginal income tax rate and the potential for changes in the future.
Tax changes under the Trump administration [00:09:22]
Explanation of the Trump tax changes and the potential impact of those changes on real estate investors.
Taxation of rental income [00:10:08]
Explanation of how rental income is taxed differently from regular job income, specifically regarding self-employment and social security taxes.
Opportunity and traps of Airbnb rentals [00:10:25]
Discussion on the potential to convert Airbnb income into losses and the tax implications of Airbnb rentals.
Making an Airbnb an active trade or business [00:11:41]
Exploring the distinction between treating an Airbnb as rental income or hotel income for self-employment purposes.
Accelerating depreciation with cost segregation study [00:14:17]
Explanation of cost segregation study and how it can help real estate investors lower their taxable income by depreciating certain assets more aggressively.
Tax Depreciation and its Benefits [00:21:34]
Explanation of how tax depreciation works in real estate investing and its value in reducing taxable income.
The Basics of 1031 Exchange [00:26:13]
Overview of the 1031 exchange, a tax-deferred exchange that allows real estate investors to swap properties without paying capital gains tax.
The Long-Term Benefits of 1031 Exchange [00:28:37]
Discussion on the strategy of using 1031 exchanges until death to maximize tax deferral and potentially convert it into tax-free gains for heirs.
The 1031 Exchange Trick [00:30:36]
Speaker 3 explains a trick to maximize the benefits of a 1031 exchange by utilizing passive activity losses.
The Pass-Through Deduction [00:33:21]
Speaker 3 discusses the concept of the pass-through deduction and its application to rentals, providing insights on how to maximize the deduction.
Future Tax Policies [00:36:15]
The potential tax policies of Democratic and Republican presidential candidates are discussed, with an emphasis on their stance towards real estate and taxes.
The 1031 tax deferred exchange [00:40:03]
Explanation of the 1031 tax deferred exchange and its potential benefits for real estate investors.
Disclaimer and advice [00:40:36]
Disclaimer about the show not providing specific personal or professional advice, and the need to consult appropriate professionals for individualized advice.
Sponsorship message [00:41:04]
Acknowledgment of the show's sponsor, getricheducation.com, as a platform for wealth building.
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Show Notes:
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Complete episode transcript:
Speaker 1 (00:00:01) - Welcome to. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold. Real estate investors get tax breaks like you'll find absolutely nowhere else in the entire tax code that can help you legally work the tax system like you're a billionaire and actually work your way toward becoming a billionaire. Today on Get Rich Education.
Speaker 2 (00:00:22) - You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is Get rich education.
Speaker 1 (00:00:38) - Welcome from Belgrade, Serbia, to Bellingham, Washington, and across 188 nations worldwide with 5.2 million listener downloads. I'm your host Keith Weinhold and this is Get Rich education. Yeah, you're back at that abundant place and you gotta be because the scarcity mentality is abundant in the abundance mentality is scarce so be frugal with your time, not your money. You can afford to be because you live by the mantra that financially free beats debt free. Throughout our nine years of weekly shows here, Waiting in the Wings is just the third ever expert tax guest we've had on the show. The other two are Tom Wheelwright and Kristen Tate.
Speaker 1 (00:01:18) - You meet the third one in a few minutes. Here I am sitting the first half of this month in Denver, Omaha and then Chicago checking out real estate markets and more. Before we talk taxes. All prices have risen this year, just like they do most years, and they expect to stay elevated. I've talked before about all those reasons why demographic and supply demand and all of that, but why else are houses permanently more expensive today than they were decades ago, even when adjusted for inflation in some cases? Well, it's not all the dollars given to people during Covid or anything like that. It's just the fact that houses are bigger and more complicated than they were in the 1970s and 1980s. I mean, they used to build houses that were just 1000 or 1500 square feet. I mean, often it would be like a three bed, one bath house with a one car garage that used to be sort of the suburban staple. Well, today it'll often be four bed, three bath, three car garage with things that didn't exist in yesteryear.
Speaker 1 (00:02:26) - I mean, today you have things like multiple fireplaces and vaulted ceilings and more overall size and more amenities that would have just been considered a luxury home like 50 years ago. So the home quality is better and you also have more strict building codes that leads to things like more insulation or egress windows or different roofs or wiring or Hvac and plumbing in that courts are going to countertops, even in rentals. That was an unthinkable luxury 50 plus years ago. And also today, it's just more expensive to develop land. It takes years to get approvals for drainage and utilities and roads and environmental requirements. And after all that, all those factors that make us real estate more expensive. The US still has some of the most affordable property prices in the entire world. Now those changes that I talked about aren't bad. It just makes real estate more expensive. And a lot of times those changes are actually good. It means we have a higher and better standard of living now and now seemingly everyone from Warren Buffett, with his big investment in home builders to shark tanks, Barbara Corcoran's bullishness, I mean, all these people have made either bullish bets or bullish remarks on real estate, all these prominent figures.
Speaker 1 (00:03:52) - And we are to, in future episodes of the show here, someone who admits that he's a gloomier guest. He and I are going to produce a fascinating episode on the collapse of American cities, what's happening in some of our inner cities, How bad is it and how bad will it get? Yeah, we're talking about the collapse of American cities in that episode. And also in a few weeks, I will be in the Keystone state of Pennsylvania for a different, fascinating episode. That's what I'm going to sit down with. The Honorable Secretary of Banking and Securities for the great state of Pennsylvania. He's in that role from 2020 to 2023. That's a cabinet level agency there in the state capital of Harrisburg. And my guest for that show there, yes, he was appointed to that position by Pennsylvania's governor. And he also sits on the board of trustees for an Ivy League university. That is Penn there in Philadelphia. And I'll be sure that the secretary of banking and securities for Pennsylvania that he understands some core principles here and get his opinion on those.
Speaker 1 (00:04:58) - So, again, that's the secretary of banking and securities for the great state of Pennsylvania appointed by the governor. Coming up here on Gray. Now, when we look down the road into the more distant future here on the show in, well, I guess, 31 weeks on Monday, May 6th, 2024, do you have any idea what that day is? That day is episode 500 of the Get Rich Education podcast, and I'm going to take you on an abundance mindset journey then that I hope you'll never forget for episode 500. That's on May 6th of next year. So many other great episodes are in the works here for the show. The housing market has momentum. I have a lot of great material that I want to share directly with you, and we really have some of the top guests in the industry. And I guess they're attracted here because they know that they'll reach a large, passionate, actionable audience and that's what you are. So if you're new here to the podcast, I invite you come along with me.
Speaker 1 (00:06:01) - I think you'll find it valuable. If you immerse yourself, you'll find it life changing and everything that we do and offer here is free. This show reliably recurs in your life every single week without any exceptions, just like it has since 2014. And we have never replayed an old show. I am here for you. I'm inviting you. Be sure to subscribe or follow in your favorite pod catcher. And the reason that I tell you about the Get Rich Education mobile app is that if you have someone in your life whose life would like to be changed by real estate investing or could be changed by real estate investing but doesn't know about podcasts that way. For iOS and Android, you can just have them grab the Get Rich Education mobile app. We are in Q4 and it is time to think about your taxes before the year ends. Today's expert tax guest is brilliant and understands nuances about the tax code that I sure don't. This centers on the US tax code. But you know what? If you're outside the United States, many nations provide similar incentives to the United States.
Speaker 1 (00:07:08) - Now, I don't know about you, but in my opinion, tax talk, you know, if one isn't careful, it can quickly feel like an abstraction which can make it hard to understand. We are get rich education. I'm here to help you understand things. So what I'd like to do to help aid in your comprehension is jump in and use concrete examples during our interview here. And then after the interview, I'm also going to review what you learned. Hey, today's guest is making his debut. He's a tax reduction professional. He caters real estate investors and small businesses. In fact, he is pretty well known as the tax reduction lawyer. Hey, welcome on to John Hiatt. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (00:07:57) - Glad to be here from Argentina.
Speaker 1 (00:08:00) - Yeah, you're joining me from a most interesting place today, a place with high inflation and tasty steaks and a lot of other things going on in Argentina today. But back here in the United States, where so much of our listenership is, I want to get into the real estate part and how real estate investors can lower their tax burden shortly.
Speaker 1 (00:08:19) - But first of all, just in general, John, every one of us that has an income pays an income tax. Now, Obama had the highest marginal income tax rate of 39.6% under the Trump administration. That was soon lowered from 39.6 down to 37 when the Biden administration came into power. A lot of people felt like that 37% rate was going to be raised back up to 39.6, but it was not, and it's still at 37%. So with that context, can you talk to us more about the direction of the marginal income tax rate?
Speaker 3 (00:08:55) - Gridlock, glorious, wonderful gridlock, when those people in DC are unable to, quote unquote do anything mean? I'm happy in one sense. I get a lot of opportunities to make content when the law changes. But in terms of the good of the country, when very little is changing in DC, yeah, usually I'm a happy camper and right now with the gridlock and they're not agreeing on things, I would say the most that's likely to happen, I don't think marginal tax rates will change.
Speaker 3 (00:09:22) - There is some negotiation on some of the Trump tax changes, which were almost all very positive, are fading out. For example, bonus depreciation is dropping by 20% per year. Right? So the Republicans are trying to keep it at 100%. The Democrats want more spending. That's the polite term. Let's leave it at spending. And so there is some discussion going. We'll see if they can agree or not. But I don't see any massive changes coming given the gridlock.
Speaker 1 (00:09:51) - Now as real estate investors and we think about the income tax, one often wonders, even when someone's been a real estate investor for a little while, John, I don't quite think they understand how the rent income is taxed differently than their daily job income. Can you tell us about that?
Speaker 3 (00:10:08) - Yeah, really important in two contexts. I'm going to give you the straight rentals on straight rentals. The rental income had schedule E instead of schedule C or some other schedule. So like W-2 income, the extent it's tax, there's no self-employment or Social Security.
Speaker 3 (00:10:25) - So that is a positive. Also, with things like depreciation, you have a lot greater opportunity to zero out the income or even convert it into losses. Now, if you manage to convert it into losses, we have a separate struggle which is making those losses useful. In other words, they're not being passive losses which we can have a discussion on. Another up and coming area is short term rentals. I'll just call it Airbnbs generically, even though there are a lot of other systems, it's really important to understand there's opportunity here, but there also traps. Airbnbs can be taxed as rental income or hotel income. And which one do you want? Well, the lawyer answer, of course, is always it depends. Usually we want it taxed as rental income for self-employment purposes. In other words, your Airbnb normally belongs on schedule E, not schedule C, which is good because you avoid self-employment tax. Most CPAs don't understand that. Second, from a passive loss standpoint, in other words, converting these passive bad losses into good losses that might offset your W-2.
Speaker 3 (00:11:36) - You want the Airbnb treated from that standpoint as a hotel.
Speaker 1 (00:11:41) - And when John's using the word hotel, he's using his fingers to make little, quote, signs around the word hotel.
Speaker 3 (00:11:48) - Yes, because hotels are considered not rentals. It's an active trade or business. And the definition is different. So we have the code might take the same word and define it 15 different ways depending on which part of the code you're playing with here. That helps us real brief one your audience, A lot of them have a day job. A lot of them would have a hard time becoming real estate professionals, which would allow them to take passive losses on rentals. Right. Well, for those who happen to be in Airbnbs or even just temporarily want to get into Airbnbs to get a loss, here's a classic strategy for people who have a W-2 job or otherwise have too much work time outside of real estate. They cannot ever be a real estate professional. It's just not going to happen. And again, the impact of that means passive rental losses stay passive.
Speaker 3 (00:12:40) - They. On the return. They don't help you in the present. A way to wake up those losses and make them active is the first year you have a rental for passive loss purposes. Make it an Airbnb and be personally involved with it. So let's talk about that. How do you make it an Airbnb for passive loss purposes? There are a number of ways because I can talk for hours and you don't want that. The most common way to make something into an Airbnb for passive loss purposes is on average rented for seven days or less. If you rent it for seven days or less, it still goes on schedule. E No social security tax. But instead of rental passive loss rules, you deal with the normal ones. What does that mean If you spend 100 hours or more and by the way, you means you and your spouse, if you're filing married, filing jointly, your hours both count so you can split the burden. If your hands on renting the Airbnb, let's say you buy it late in the year so you don't have to run it all year and you spend 100 or more hours on it between the two of you and no other human spends more time than you, then it is considered active.
Speaker 3 (00:13:51) - People will want to rewind and listen to that because it's a great strategy for in the first year you own something going to be a rental, maybe buy it towards the end of the year, run it as an Airbnb for the end of the year. Not a big time commitment. 100 plus hours. Take the cost segregation study, write that all off and use it. It's actually will lower your W-2 income. It's useful. And then in year two, if you want to go back to it being a normal rent.
Speaker 1 (00:14:17) - So we're talking about accelerating your depreciation and therefore decreasing the amount of your taxable income with this strategy.
Speaker 3 (00:14:27) - Yep. So the cost segregation study where the basics of cost segregation, when you hear the term, first of all, you only use it if you can use the loss. But if the loss is going to be passive, don't add cost, it's going to cost you money and get you not. But if you can use the law, what is cost? Segregation? We depreciate more aggressively.
Speaker 3 (00:14:46) - A very brief description. Everything outdoors that God did not put there. Fences, sidewalks, decks, landscaping. It was put there by builders like the oak tree that the squirrel put there. We give God credit for that one. But if the builder actually planted a row of trees, they get the credit. All these things that God did not put outdoors can be depreciated very rapidly and get you a much larger write off. And then all personal property which we define as anything a tenant can steal without using power tools. So furniture, some of the carpeting, maybe some of the cupboards, window treatments, etcetera. That's a cost seg study that will draw your income. Usually it produces a loss. And then we have to ask, can you use the loss?
Speaker 1 (00:15:33) - We hit on a very specific and valuable strategy there for reducing you, the real estate investors, taxable income. But just pulling back to something more basic, you said something important in the beginning there when asked about how rental income is taxed differently than the bank.
Speaker 1 (00:15:50) - You did let us know that rental income is not subject to self-employment tax and Social Security tax. And I know it's difficult to do 1 to 1 because certainly it depends. But oh, if one is in the 24% tax bracket, so therefore they're $1 from their job, that really only resulted in them getting $0.76 if they get $1 from rental income, just roughly or perhaps give us a range as to how much after tax income they get from that dollar of rent income.
Speaker 3 (00:16:19) - Classic Lawyer Answer It depends. Here's a rough rule of thumb. So self-employment and Social Security tax are pretty much the same thing.
Speaker 1 (00:16:26) - And how much percentage are they alone?
Speaker 3 (00:16:28) - So here's how the bracket work. That's the reverse of the normal bracket. It gets lower. The more you make. Roughly speaking, I'm just rounding here. If you have 150 gram of Social Security or self-employment taxable income, for example, your W-2, this is per person, not per couple. If you have 150 up to 150, your Social Security tax bracket is roughly 15%.
Speaker 3 (00:16:52) - Then it drops after that 150 grand to right around 3 to 5%, depending on factors you don't want to know. So it depends on your total income. For example, if you have a $200,000 W-2 and you run out and have a side business that generates self-employment tax, your self-employment tax is probably only 3 to 5%. So it depends on how much you're making that is self-employment taxable.
Speaker 1 (00:17:18) - Right. So we're talking about how you will have a chance to keep more of your $1 of rent income than you would from your $1 of day job income. And that's interesting with the Social Security tax, I actually didn't realize that, therefore, Social Security tax is a regressive tax policy. With increasing income, you pay a lower tax rate where generally overall in the United States, we would have with the income tax what's called a progressive tax policy, where you pay a higher tax rate with increasing income.
Speaker 3 (00:17:47) - Correct. And here's the theory to make it pass politically. Back when they did this in the 30s, they had to sell it as it's insurance and we're going to cap out your insurance, but we're also going to cap out your benefits.
Speaker 3 (00:17:59) - And so if you look in that regard, it's not really regressive because your benefits are also capped out. Now, what's one of the proposals? Let's make it flat so that people who make more subsidizing, those who make less, making it functionally progressive because you don't get any more benefits past a certain level.
Speaker 1 (00:18:17) - You're listening to get raises occasionally. We're talking with the tax reduction lawyer, John. Here we come back, we're going to talk about some more of those real estate tax advantages and get into the nuances of some things that people don't understand that well, like tax depreciation and the 1031 exchange. More with John. I'm your host, Keith Reinhold. Jerry listeners can't stop talking about their service from Ridge Lending Group and MLS 42056. They have provided our tribe with more loans than anyone there truly a top lender for beginners and veterans. It's where I go to get my own loans for single family rental property up to four Plex's. So start your pre-qualification and you can chat with President Charlie Ridge personally, though, even deliver your custom plan for growing your real estate portfolio.
Speaker 1 (00:19:04) - Start at Ridge Lending Group. You know, I'll just tell you for the most passive part of my real estate investing personally, I put my own dollars with Freedom family Investments because their funds pay me a stream of regular cash flow in. Returns are better than a bank savings account up to 12%. Their minimums are as low as 25. K. You don't even need to be accredited. For some of them, it's all backed by real estate and I kind of love how the tax benefit of doing this can offset capital gains in your W-2, jobs, income. And they've always given me exactly their stated return paid on time. So it's steady income, no surprises while I'm sleeping or just doing the things I love. For a little insider tip, I've invested in their power fund to get going on that text family to 668660. And this isn't a solicitation If you want to invest where I do, just go ahead and text family to 66866.
Speaker 4 (00:20:15) - This is author Kristen Tait. Listen to Get Rich Education with Keith Reinhold and don't Quit Your Day dream.
Speaker 1 (00:20:32) - Welcome back to Get Rich. Okay. So we're talking with John here. The tax reduction lawyer is how he's known. You can learn more about him at tax reduction, lawyer John's real estate investors. We get some of the very best tax breaks anywhere. In fact, they're so generous that I consider it to be a profit source. And I don't know that you can really say that about taxes in all contexts. I talk about how real estate actually pays you five way simultaneously appreciation cash flow, loan pay down made by the tenant. Fourthly, is that generous basket of tax benefits that we'll discuss. And then fifthly, is the inflation profiting benefit that you get on the long term fixed interest rate debt? But coming back to the fourth one, the tax advantages, really the two big ones that I predominantly think of, the quickly come to mind for a lot of us are tax depreciation, which is a deduction that reduces the investor's taxable income and the 1031 exchange, meaning that we can defer all of our capital gains tax all of our lives, which is incredible.
Speaker 1 (00:21:34) - But do you want to touch on the tax depreciation portion first, John, and tell us why that's so integral and valuable to real estate investors? Sure. When you buy stock.
Speaker 3 (00:21:43) - For example, on the market, it does not produce any paper deductions. Basically, you get the stock, whatever you paid for, it is your tax cost, your basis, and when you sell it, you just look, what did I sell it for, minus the tax cost. That's my gain. There are no benefits in the intervening time. You just sit and hold it. Nothing really happens. Real estate is different and that you get a paper deduction. Why Congress said so. You get something called depreciation and it's formulaic. You take the cost that you have in the property, what you have invested, and you multiply it by some number. Now that's where the cost segregation gets interesting because we debate which number. But for the moment, let's just pick a number. The most typical one is 3.6%. Multiply the building by 0.036 of what you have invested in it.
Speaker 3 (00:22:33) - And annually that's a deduction you get because and so that goes a long way when you add it to other expenses to reducing your income to zero. So the so if you have the income tax rate is much lower.
Speaker 1 (00:22:45) - So if you have a $1 million building, we're not talking about the value of the land with the building, just a $1 million building. Therefore you'd have about $36,000 each year that you do not get taxed on. That $36,000 is deducted from your rent income.
Speaker 3 (00:23:03) - Exactly. Try that with stock or mean you can. So that was a hypothetical non suggestion. Yeah, but that's one of the big benefits of depreciation. Now what's the downside? Because there's always strings attached. It drops your tax calls. So if I bought for a million, I took 36,000. Now my tax cost is 964,000. And so when I sell, if I sell will get into that, I have a larger gain. So there's a trade off. Now, in fairness, one of the other benefits of rental real estate is if you do sell for cash and you choose to pay taxes, we're going to talk about an alternative.
Speaker 3 (00:23:39) - If you choose to pay taxes, the tax rate on selling real estate are almost always 98% of the time lower than your normal tax bracket. So even if you sell after getting this depreciation benefit, the bracket is almost always considerably lower than your normal income, which is nice.
Speaker 1 (00:23:59) - I don't want this point to be lost on people. With that example I give of the $1 million building that you buy and the fact that say you get $100,000 of rent income from that, you'd only be taxed on $64,000 worth because you're able to deduct 3.6% of the value of the million dollar building against your rent income. And that $36,000 deduction typically with a lot of other investments, in order to get that deduction, you would have to make a $36,000 expense, like, for example, buying a new heating system for the building. But no, you don't have to buy a new $36,000 heating system for the building where you might qualify for that deduction. It's just the magic of appreciation. You can just take this $36,000 deduction out of thin air because the tax code says that you can.
Speaker 3 (00:24:47) - Yep, it's pretty much automatic. In fact, the code says you have to take it.
Speaker 1 (00:24:51) - That's right. I have learned that the tax code actually says you must take this benefit. And who wouldn't want to do that? Would there be any situation in which someone would not want to do that job?
Speaker 3 (00:25:02) - Yes. If they're going to sell later on or if they're going to sell in the comparatively near future, let's say they're going to buy and hold rent for three years and they're going to sell after three years taking the depreciation if it did not help them, let's say, created a passive loss, raises their bracket a little bit when they sell in three years. Now it's still lower than your normal bracket. It's just not as. Much lower as you would like. So yeah, there are a few spots where people resisting depreciation. It's pretty rare, but it happens.
Speaker 1 (00:25:32) - So you must take that depreciation, which is going to be a benefit to most investors in most cases down the road when it comes time to sell this million dollar building, oh, say ten years later, you wanted to sell this million dollar building for $2 million.
Speaker 1 (00:25:47) - Oh, I'm certainly oversimplifying here, but say that gave you $1 million gain because you bought it for 1 million and you're selling it for $2 million down the road. We have something known as the 1031 exchange. It's called the light kind exchange. It's also known as a tax deferred exchange. Tell us more about the 1031 exchange when it comes to selling this example, building ten years down the road for $1 million more than what you bought it for.
Speaker 3 (00:26:13) - You want to avoid paying tax. Here's the basics and then we'll get into a little bit of the process. The basics are you're swapping one house for another, but you don't have to direct swap. It's not barter. You don't have to go find someone who wants your house and you happen to want their house. That's just not practical. Rather, you sell your house, the money goes into the hands. This is really important of what's called a qualified intermediary. There are tons of them and that's pretty much a commodity at this point. So they're not that expensive.
Speaker 3 (00:26:39) - The money has to go in their hands. If you touch the money with your hands, it becomes dirty money and it's taxable, which sells. It goes straight from closing to the qualified intermediary. And you have certain deadlines, 45 days to find properties that you want and 180 days total from the sale date close, which kind of can help you time, especially if you have a cooperative buyer helps you. You need a time. For example, maybe I want to find the property I want sooner and then get out and sell the one I've got and you can do it in reverse order. You can go buy a property and then sell something afterwards and say to the government, Listen, I want the funds from this later sale to apply to this prior purchase. A reverse reverse fixture. Yeah, reverse exchange. And there are some creative games we can play with reverse exchanges. They're looser rule wise than the normal ones. I enjoy those 1031 exchange.
Speaker 1 (00:27:36) - Such a benefit where you can defer your capital gains tax.
Speaker 1 (00:27:40) - Hey, in this example you had $1 million then that would be subject to the capital gains tax, which is going to be a rate of 15% or more. And if you don't do a 1031 exchange, you have to pay back to the government all at once that tax depreciation that we discussed earlier. So there are actually consequences. It's going to feel like there are consequences to not doing a 1031 exchange. So you kind of get your money trapped in this real estate game. It might be the best place to have it, but that's something that I think investors need to understand for the long term.
Speaker 3 (00:28:12) - And it's the classic strategy. 1031 Until you die. Now, what typically occurs with investors and then life cycle, they want a little more time, so they start 1030, letting in some more passive type investments, whether it's with a management company or a property that by its nature tends to be a little bit more passive, but the object is to die and not sell. I'm not suggesting everyone go out and die right away.
Speaker 3 (00:28:37) - That's great tax planning. But in terms of reality, it's not so great. But if you. 1031 let's give an example. You bought for a million, many years later it's worth 10 million. Your basis in the property is 100,000. You've depreciated it. So if you sell, there's a huge gain, you die. Whoever inherits is going to love you. At least we hope they will, because when they inherit the property that's worth 10 million, their tax cost, their basis at law is 10 million. They can sell the next day with no gain. That's the infamous step up in basis. And the object is to convert the deferral into tax free. If you defer long enough, it becomes tax free. That's the goal.
Speaker 1 (00:29:18) - And John touched on it. There is no limit to the number of times that you can do the 1031 tax deferred exchange. As a real estate investor, you can trade up from a $1 million property to a $2 million property. Ten more years go by to a $4 million property.
Speaker 1 (00:29:33) - Ten more years go by to an $8 million property. Now I'm certainly oversimplifying this, but at each step you don't owe any capital gains tax. So because you can defer it endlessly, you really never have to pay it and effectively becomes tax free with that step up and basis to your heirs like John just described. John, I'd like to know your thoughts. You know, it seems a few different presidents lately. I know Biden, at least he threatened to do away with the 1031 exchange. I just wonder if the 1031 exchange is ever going to get precarious. I think some people, though, don't understand that the 1031 tax deferred exchange has been around for more than a hundred years.
Speaker 3 (00:30:12) - They've been talking about getting rid of the 1031 since the 1930, and Democratic administrations have threatened to do it since the 1930. They've never had the supermajority they need to actually get away with it. And even then they've come close to it. And even then, some of the lobbyists on the Democratic side said, listen, this is not a good idea, freezes up capital.
Speaker 3 (00:30:36) - We want people to be able to buy and sell and not be frozen into a property because of tax reasons. So, look, could it happen? Sure. We live in a crazy world, but the probability of the 1031 going away I think is pretty darn low. Let me give one real quick trick that's going to help. Some people won't help very many, but the ones that helps it help big time for you. 1031 A property. Ask your accountant. Do I have any passive losses tied up in the property? They're going to know there's going to be a form on your larger tax return. There are different versions of your return. The big thick one is not. The one that goes to the government. Ask them how much passive activity loss you have in the building. Whatever that is in a 1031. Take out the cash. It's tax free and in fact, it's tax arbitrage. To give you an example. We are selling a property. You had a million and you're selling for 2 million.
Speaker 3 (00:31:29) - Let's say you had 100,000 of passive losses tied up in it. Go ahead and take out 100,000 cash from the exchange. Go ahead, ask double check with the 1031 intermediary because they know the rules. But go ahead and take out the 100,000. What happens? You get the 100,000 tax free because your passive losses that were hibernating on the return are now activated and wipe out. Normally when you pull cash out of a 1031, there's gains. Normally we don't do that. But here the losses are activated. They not only offset the 100 you pulled out, they drop your tax bracket because you're getting a capital gains tax bracket offset by a normal loss that was now brought out of hibernation. So just a little trick for those of you always before 1031, always ask your CPA, what's my passive activity loss? And think about taking out exactly that amount of cash, tax rate, tax arbitrage.
Speaker 1 (00:32:28) - I just learned something as well. I've got a number of 1031 exchanges in my life and that's one tip that I sure didn't know about.
Speaker 1 (00:32:35) - So thanks for that. And if you, the listener, if you want to learn the nuances of the 1031 exchange, which John and I aren't going to do here, because that really goes a mile deep with the three properties rule and the 200% rule and all of that. You can listen to episode 143 where that entire episode is dedicated to the 1031 tax deferred exchange and just how you can best pull it off for maximum tax efficiency so that you can then go ahead and re leverage those dollars into a larger property later. Well, John, that was very helpful on both tax depreciation and the 1031 exchange. Do you have any last things to share with us? Any last strategies so that a real estate investor can pay less in tax or anything that's particularly helpful?
Speaker 3 (00:33:21) - Yes. There's this concept of the Trump tax law called the pass through deduction or qualified business income tax code, Section 199 Capital A First of all, it applies to all rentals. Unless they're triple net least. A lot of accountants still don't get that.
Speaker 3 (00:33:38) - You have to have a trade or business that's tax term trade or business rentals that are not triple net leased are a trade or business, which is a good thing under the code. So there's this deduction. It's large. If you're showing that income even after depreciation and everything you buy is typically 20% of the net income. So if I'm showing 100 grand of net income, I get a $20,000 deduction because Congress said so. Protect that. In particular, if you make roughly I'm rounding here 164 grand total taxable income on your 1040 single and roughly 370 filing joint, there are special things you need to do to maximize the QBI and you need to do it before the end of the year. Nothing pains me more than to see high income people who benefit the most from this deduction because of their high bracket and they're in these high brackets. And if they would have done a little bit of talking to their CPA, hey, I think I'm going to make married filing jointly 370 or more for the year. It's going to cut my QBI based on the mechanical rules.
Speaker 3 (00:34:41) - What can I do to preserve my qualified business? Income tax deduction might pass their tax deduction. To do that, you need a really good set of books and returns. You have to have good books in the knowledge of your income so your accountant can look and say, Hey, here's how much we think you're going to make. B Here's what we can do to preserve this deduction. That is the number one easy pick up by C in tax returns. I review for planning purposes that people missed in prior years and we tell them going forward, please, please towards the end of the year, start thinking about if you're going to show gain. Doesn't matter if you're showing a loss, but if you're going to show gain in any business, not just rentals, please look at the deduction. Please make sure you're getting the full 20%.
Speaker 1 (00:35:25) - John is an expert at looking at your recent tax returns and pointing it to one area and saying, hey, there's a quick ROI for you if we change this. And right over there is another quick ROI for you if we change this.
Speaker 1 (00:35:37) - Well, John, that's been great with what we can do with the existing tax code to help optimize our situation. But wrapping up here, a lot of people are interested in what's coming down the road in the future. It can be a little bit speculative, but it also can be a proxy for how people and politicians are thinking. And that's. Is there anything that the presidential candidates are offering tax wise? It's very interesting whether that be an RFK Jr or a Ron DeSantis or a Vivek Ramaswamy or Nikki Haley or anyone else with this potential future direction of where an influential candidate wants to take taxes.
Speaker 3 (00:36:15) - I think the parties are pretty consistent regardless of candidate. Now they each have their subgenre of flavor, right? Do you like your chocolate? Dark or milk chocolate or with or without salt, but it's still milk chocolate. So likewise, the Democratic presidential candidates are going to be looking to increase taxes, get rid of what they view as loopholes, and they are aware of real estate having a lot of special benefits and they don't care for it.
Speaker 3 (00:36:41) - The Republicans, by contrast, are going to be more for lowering taxes. They are not hostile to real estate. They're generally pro-business, especially pro small business. And I think that's consistent across the board. I don't think there's a lot of deviation there with either party. The specific proposals will vary. For example, the Kennedy candidate strikes me as less hardcore left wing and a little more common sensical than maybe some of the more progressive sorts and might not be as harsh in that regard.
Speaker 1 (00:37:13) - Well, that's helpful in knowing what future policy might be and that might affect the way that you want to vote. This has been really helpful, particularly to real estate investors and small business owners. You are the tax reduction lawyer, so if our audience wants to connect with you and learn more about what you can do for them, what's the best way for them to do that?
Speaker 3 (00:37:33) - Not coincidentally, tax reduction lawyer.com and I put out a ton of content. I take a few clients but it's really getting more and more content based.
Speaker 3 (00:37:43) - So if you like what you heard, you might hear more.
Speaker 1 (00:37:47) - Sometimes in the video, hear you and the audio only might not be able to see that. For example, when John was using the word loopholes, he was using his fingers as air quotes. He understands that these are intentional incentives that help direct behavior because the government knows that society is generally better off when the private sector and the mom and pop investor are the ones providing good housing for society. A lot of public housing projects really haven't fared so well. So that's what John is here to help you do provide clean, safe, affordable, functional housing for others and get all the tax benefits that come along with that. Hey, John. Hi. It's been great having you here on the show.
Speaker 3 (00:38:26) - It has been an absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:38:35) - Oh, yeah. Nice clear breakdowns from the tax reduction lawyer John Heyer. I was talking with John Moore outside of our show. He read the entire some 1000 page long inflation reduction act that was passed last year.
Speaker 1 (00:38:51) - He did that to try to help understand its tax implications for his clients and was kind of impressed that he had the endurance, I suppose, to read all of it. And I asked him how many members of Congress he thinks read it and we both answer the question at the same time. Zero To achieve one looks like the top 1%. You must act like the top 1% does. And that might include tapping the expertise of a pro like John to review what you've learned today with our expert guest John. No changes to federal income tax rates are expected. There are ways to lighten the tax burden on your short term rentals, which you might not be aware of. Your dollar of day job income that's taxed at a higher rate than your dollar of rent income. Because on your day job income, you must pay Social Security and self-employment tax. You don't pay those tax types on your rent income. Real estate tax depreciation is kind of like magic. It means that you can write off a portion of your rent income each year, meaning that you can make it non-taxable even if you don't have a real expense associated with doing that.
Speaker 1 (00:40:03) - You learn more about the 1031 tax deferred exchange and the fact that it will persist as a benefit for real estate investors is highly likely. Again, if you like what you learn each week on the Gerry podcast, I invite you to subscribe or follow within your favorite podcasting device. For those non podcast listener friends you might have, they can try the Get Rich Education mobile app. Everything that we do is free until next week. We'll all be back to help you build your wealth. I'm your host, Keith Wild. Don't quit your day dream.
Speaker 5 (00:40:36) - Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of Get Rich Education LLC exclusively.
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