2 LLC's construction and flip to lower taxes?

2 LLC's construction and flip to lower taxes?

Member since 2021 · 2 posts · 0 votes

Okay guys.. so in short, we sold our family businesses and now I have a great opportunity to get into house flipping full time. We currently own 2 properties in our personal names and one is almost done. So we want to move forward professionally. So to my knowledge you have "ordinary income" (flipping a house in under a year), and capital gains tax (owning the property for more than a year). 1st off, is this idea legal, and would it even help on lowering taxes. I had the idea to form 2 LLC's. 1 for flipping the houses, the 2nd for a construction company. I do a lot of the work myself, and will use some subs. The idea would be for the flip LLC to purchase the property. The construction company to bill the flip LLC for labor, materials (marked up over the price I would pay, say Lowe's prices), sublet labor (also marked up). The construction company would make a majority of the profit, which would raise the expenses of the house flipping LLC, hence lowering taxes. I am not sure if this is legal, or even makes sense. Would the construction company's taxes be the same as the house flipping LLC's in an ordinary income scenario? If so, my idea is basically nothing lol.

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Investor · brentwood, CA · Member since 2016 · 1k+ posts · 730 votes
5y

First time "per se" is not the determining factor distinguishing a trade or business activity from an investment activity, it's intent. Based upon the above as best I can ferret out your intent, it sounds as if you have two active businesses, that would be both taxed as such (i.e., neither is truly holding the properties as investments).

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  • Investor · brentwood, CA · Member since 2016 · 1k+ posts · 730 votes
    5y

    First time "per se" is not the determining factor distinguishing a trade or business activity from an investment activity, it's intent. Based upon the above as best I can ferret out your intent, it sounds as if you have two active businesses, that would be both taxed as such (i.e., neither is truly holding the properties as investments).

  • Member since 2021 · 2 posts · 0 votes
    5y

    Thanks for the reply Chris.. so what you are saying is.. the construction company would be taxed the same amount as the house flipping LLC? So really I would have no advantage to running 2 separate companies? The real tax savings would be for the house flipping LLC to hold the property longer than 1 year and run all of the expenses through that LLC?

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

    @Mark Roberts

    Your suggestion is a good idea for operational, accounting and (likely) for legal protection purposes. However, it will not save you any taxes because both your construction business and your flipping business will be taxed the same way, and you merely moving money from one pocket to another. It's a wash.

    That said, there're potentially tax planning (aka tax reduction) opportunities in structuring your operation, depending on your business plan and your overall financial situation. This is not for an online forum however. This is for an in-depth one-on-one conversation with an accountant specializing in real estate tax strategies.

  • Investor · Brandon, MS · Member since 2020 · 26 posts · 22 votes
    5y

    @Mark Roberts the tax web can be confusing. I'm no tax coach which is why I sought out one in my market with a healthy dose of knowledge and wisdom for the Real Estate investing world.  Before I did that, though, I read two books to get my head in the right space to ask the right questions.  I recommend the following to get your thoughts pointed in the right direction:

    https://store.biggerpockets.co...

    https://www.amazon.com/Tax-Fre...

    BP has another tax strategy book that I have not read.  I can't provide a review, but I can only imagine it's full of solid advice just like the other books:

    https://get.biggerpockets.com/...

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