Real Estate CPA Help- Tax strategy - What am I missing?

Real Estate CPA Help- Tax strategy - What am I missing?

Hesperia, CA · Member since 2017 · 18 posts · 4 votes

CPA question.  I am going to make up some easy numbers for thought experiment for a tax strategy, in my head for the future, but thinking I am missing something. 

Business owner (Joe) sales a small business ( not real estate related) and has long term capital gains of $1,000,000 in January.

Joe loves real estate and wants to buy a large multifamily for longer term income.  Joe buys a property for $2,000,000 and does a cost segregation study and gets a large first year depreciation loss of 25% or $500,000. Joe profits $100,000 from income from the property for the year.  Typically Joe would only be able to use $100,000 depreciation to offset the $100,000 income from that property (passive income) and possibly a very low amount based on income towards regular earning.

Taxed on $1,000,000  capital gains only.

Now, Joe also decides he love real estate so much he wants to become an agent, and Joe puts in enough time the same year of selling his business to qualify him as a "real estate professional" by IRS standards and makes $100,000 selling real estate.

What I can not seem to clarify is, now that Joe is a "real estate professional" in the same year he sold the business and had a large long term capital gain, can Joe use the remaining $400,000 loss from the property because as a "real estate professional" your losses are not limited to only offsetting  passive losses?

$1,000,000 capital gains - $400,000 loss from property + $100,000 earned as agent = taxed $700,000 capital gains   ????   Or

$1,000,000 capital gains + $100,000 earned as agent - $100,000 loss from property ( limited to income in real estate)= taxed $1,000,000 capital gains ???

I am looking for clarity on what losses can be used as a qualifying "real estate professional"?  I think this could be a good strategy, but never heard it talked about, so I am sure I am probably flawed somewhere within the tax code for income classifications.  Help me understand.

Thanks for your thoughtfully clarifying responses in advance,

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  • Michael PlaksPro Member
    Tax Accountant / Enrolled Agent · Houston, TX · Member since 2014 · 5k+ posts · 6k+ votes
    5y

    @Ryan Wilson

    Your understanding of taxes is not yet solid, so I will try to interpret your scenario using more accurate terminology.

    - Joe invested $500k in his business over the years and sold it in January for $1.5M.

    - Joe has a $1M taxable income from selling his business. It is not necessarily capital gain, because taxation of a business sale is complicated and has various types of taxable income involved.

    - from February to December, Joe works as a Realtor and makes $100k taxable income after expenses. This is certainly not capital gain, by the way.

    - Joe buys some rental real estate with his proceeds and incurs a $500k net tax loss for the year. This loss is his rental income minus all expenses, including depreciation and enhanced by cost segregation.

    - He will pay taxes on $1m + $100k - $500k = $600k.

    There're many possible complications, but yes, if we oversimplify things, he might be able to apply his entire $500k rental loss. This is actually very often talked about on this forum. Search it, and you will find many threads.

    Keep in mind that different parts of this picture have different tax rates and tax rules attached, so it's a very complicated calculation. It may or may not be a wise strategy, depending on Joe's overall financial situation: past, current and future. Get good help for this Joe.

  • Accountant · Atlanta, GA · Member since 2015 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    5y

    Unless the business was sold on January 1st, Joe has some time spent in non-real estate trades or businesses that going to affect the RE pro calc.  i.e. if he sells late in the year it's going to be an uphill battle to qualify as an RE pro, so the analysis is moot.

    Also, this typically wouldn't happen in the real world. If Joe is a serial entrepreneur, he's developed some valuable personal assets that allow him to earn an above average ROI on his assets and personal time. We don't generally see these type of individuals "starting from zero" as a real estate agent. Taking an income cut for tax benefits is a bit myopic.

    And if Joe is set for life and retiring, he shouldn't care about RE pro.  He should be on the beach sipping Mai Tais and letting his PM manage the day-to-day.

    Also, although it doesn't matter for your analysis, most business sales are not 100% long-term capital gain.

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