Real estate tax benefits with seperate high income sources?

[Joseph Watson]

Hi there BP members hope you are all well today. I have a few issues that I am getting large differences of opinions on. I make over 100k a year at my current job and wanna get into rentals on the side to eventually get out of working for "the man" if you know what I mean. With my income that high and being single I am already taxed ridiculously here in ga. Will getting into real estate hurt me in my overall tax picture. I have talked to a couple of small town cpa's. One says there are many tax benefits to owning real estate even with my income and others say I won't see any benefit or possibly negative! I really love the idea of rentals but man it's hard to stay motivated with all the negativity around you not only from people you know but even some professionals in certain businesses. But I'm here so obviously I'm not letting them discourage me. I will make my own way and make my own future. Thanks in advance for any help. I know this is a long read but searching the forum I didnt see much on discussions like this. 

[Yonah Weiss]

@Joseph Watson Welcome to BP! 

The CPA you spoke to was right, there are tremendous tax benefits for what the IRS calls "real estate professionals" The basic criteria is twofold: 

1) you must engage more that half of your 'working' time in real estate related activities. 

2) You must spend at least 750 hours involved in RE.

What is considered real estate involvement? Straight from the IRS website:

A real property trade or business does any of the following with real property:

Develops or redevelops it. 

Constructs or reconstructs it. 

Acquires it. 

Converts it. 

Rents or leases it. 

Operates or manages it. 

Brokers it.

Stay focused, and try to surround yourself with positive people. There is a lot of that around here.