Tax Implications of Separating Real estate from Business LLC

[Billie Joe]

My mother and I purchased a rental property last year, we are 50/50 owners. We paid cash for property at 22k, put some work and money into it, and it's been valued by the auditor at around 45k before improvements (however hasn't been officially appraised). We were looking at a couple of options for the the rental:

A. Put property into LLC 1 and manage the property with LLC 2 in the same state.

B. Put property AND Management in 1 LLC, which would be owned by a Wyoming LLC

Either option would be for protection of assets.

Question:

What are tax implications of putting the property into 1 LLC and Putting the property mgt (financial portion) into another LLC? I'm assuming we wouldn't be able to lower our tax liability by claiming depreciation on the property since the LLCs would be separate, but would we even need to? Could that create a negative impact on the taxes for the 2nd LLC (Property Mgt. side)? Am I missing something?

Put more simply: On the tax side of things, would it be better to put everything into 1 LLC or separate the asset by forming another LLC for the Management Side?

Further Details that may be pertinent: We are planning to file as an S-corp, with me managing the property and her receiving the distribution portion. 

We are both reasonably low income and the business only net profits around 7,500 per year, so since I have dependents to claim, the self-employment tax would not negatively affect me right now, and since my mother is retirement age, that scenario seems like the best option. 

It is also my understanding that any money that goes into an LLC (taxed as S-Corp), would not be taxed until it is paid out to its members (me or mom). Is that correct?

Thank you in advance to anyone who is willing to share your wisdom and experience! 

[Eamonn McElroy]

@Billie Joe

A lot of questions here...I'll answer a few in a general sense but it's really advisable to engage a tax CPA/EA who understands your facts, circumstances, and goals.

"It is also my understanding that any money that goes into an LLC (taxed as S-Corp), would not be taxed until it is paid out to its members (me or mom). Is that correct?"

No, you're thinking of a C Corp.  An S Corp is a passthrough entity.

"Further Details that may be pertinent: We are planning to file as an S-corp, with me managing the property and her receiving the distribution portion."

Are you thinking of putting the real estate asset in an S Corp?  Generally this is not advisable.  Putting appreciating assets inside of a corporate tax entity, whether S or C, should be avoided if possible.

Are you aware you may be converting income not subject to self-employment taxes to income subject to self-employment taxes by creating an S Corp to manage your own personal rentals?

The structure you're proposing looks good on paper but is more likely than not to materially decrease your ROI because you're substantially increasing administrative and tax overhead.

Old military acronym applies to real estate investing when just starting out: K.I.S.S.