Any High W2 earners out there?

[Bilal A.]

To the High W2 earning BP members out there, what strategies have you used to decrease your W2 taxable income? Depending on what state you earn your wages, income tax rates of 40-50% are unreasonable. Most of you likely don’t qualify as real estate professionals and won’t unless you quit or dramatically reduce your regular work hours so what tax planning strategies (particular to real estate investing) have you used besides taking depreciation and mortgage interest deductions? I realize that with enough properties, you can eventually replace your W2 with passive income and deduct losses against it. Do you massively leverage your high income to get loans and build your portfolio fast? Paying multiple three figures in taxes plus FICA is simply ridiculous. Thanks in advance!