All Forum Posts by: Curt Riffel

I also am a CPA, I highly recommend working in Public Accounting to gain exposure to a multitude of tax scenarios before hanging out your own shingle. You may want to have a majority of RE tax clients, but being able to help anyone who walks through the door or is referred to you will be the most beneficial if you plan to own your own practice. Working at a firm with 50-100 employees would probably be the sweet spot where you may even be able to work exclusively on RE clients. I highly doubt it though. I work at a small firm of around 25 and we have a large diverse client base and only a couple dozen are RE focused clients. Getting an internship might be a logical first step and then showing employers that you have the ability to sit for the CPA exam would be the next step. 

We, at our firm, attached a Notice 2019-07 to the tax returns we filed for 2018 related to Section 199A Trade or Business Safe Harbor: Rental Real Estate.

Continue to HODL. It is a speculative investment that may go to $20K or to $0. It is the first crypto-currency to market and has name recognition but also has some downsides that may lead to its demise. 

There is no doubt that crypto-currencies are here to stay, but it will be for the future to tell us which one has the power to stick around and be used ubiquitously as Credit Cards are used now. I wouldn't necessarily hitch my wagon to Bitcoin, but it is the largest by market cap currently. 

Market for renters is growing as more out of state persons move to DFW in addition to people waiting longer to purchase their first home. If I were buying a house I would look for access to the DART or the future DART Cotton Belt line. Nearly everything will be 45 minutes from DFW airport, unless its a high traffic time. There are too many other variables you have to determine for yourself - price, size, quality, schools, crime rate, etc

2nd Garland - Also Irving will be booming south and southeast of the airport.

The most popular ones I hear of in the space are QBO - Quick Books Online and Xero.

My understanding of the depreciation (from rental) is that even if you did not take the depreciation, you are still required to report the amount as 1250 recapture as if you had taken it during the rental timeframe. You still qualify for the home exclusion since you lived in the home at least 24 months of the last 60 months. The amount of time you live in the house does not have to be contiguous either. There may be some limitations of the exclusion amount because of the conversion to a rental, I'd have to re-read the regulations.

I think these may prove to be a popular way to invest in the future. This is a viable way to pull gains out tax-free before death if I am reading this correctly, subject to rules and restrictions of course. The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act established the Qualified Opportunity Zone program to provide a tax incentive for private, long-term investment in economically distressed communities. The Opportunity Zones program provides a tax incentive for investors to re-invest their unrealized capital gains into Opportunity Funds that are dedicated to investing into Opportunity Zones designated by the chief executives of every U.S. state and territory. The Treasury has certified 8,700 Opportunity Zones, twelve percent of U.S. census tracts, many of which already attract businesses and investments. Because of the complicated nature of these investments and the fact that the rules are still under review, consult with your CPA before committing any funds.

The spammers are just spoofing legitimate phone numbers. Nearly everyone with a cell phone receives these auto-dialed calls, and nearly all of the calls are illegal. Unfortunately they are unable to stop them at present. 

My phone carrier, T-Mobile, does a decent job of blocking tons of these calls from reaching me. There are other products on the market that also do an okay job of screening these calls out. One of the app companies owns thousands of phone lines and monitors for calls emanating from the same number and blocks it. The problem is the numbers constantly change, and can even be from legitimate sources. 

Fox, Byrd, and Company is situated in N. Dallas. They have around 10 CPAs on staff, Kerry Johnson is one of their partners and could offer assistance. They do advisory, tax, audit, bookkeeping, etc. They are a full service accounting firm.