Can rental income be put in a solo 401k?

[Kyle Scholnick]

Can you take rental income from a rental property and put it in a solo 401k and therefore delay the taxes on the rental income?

[Dmitriy Fomichenko]

Originally posted by @Kyle Scholnick:

Can you take rental income from a rental property and put it in a solo 401k and therefore delay the taxes on the rental income?

Kyle, you can not take rental income from a rental property that you own and put that into a Solo 401k (if you had one). Only earned income can be contributed into Solo 401k. Rental income is considered to be passive.

However, when you own a rental property you can legitimately deduct from the income all of the expenses related to that rental property. And in addition to that you can deduct property depreciation, which is not an expense that you incurred, it's a paper loss and one of the great benefits of owning real estate.