All Forum Posts by: Gabe H.

Thanks for the quick response Mark!

I keep hearing how real estate is the greatest tax haven.  Some podcast make it seem like you can use real estate as a loophole to pay capital gains tax where you would have paid ordinary income tax. The only thing I can see is using depreciation to delay paying taxes. Not getting reduced taxes. Where it essentially is an interest free loan until you sell a property. 

I've tried searching the forums, but couldn't find an exact answer to this question. 

Depreciation reduces the cost basis of your property, and has it's own, 25% depreciation recapture tax rate when you sell. 

So if you bought a house for 100k. Have 50k depreciation and sell for 200k, you get taxed on the gain of 150k. 50k@25% for depreciation recapture and 100k@15% for capital gains. 

If you do a 1031 and buy a new property for 400k, your new basis is 250k. 

Question 1) does the depreciation recapture follow thru the 1032 exchange where you still keep track 50k worth of recapture? Or does the basis reset with the new property?

I assume you keep the capital gains/depreciation itemized. Where you add the 50k deprecation amount to any future depreciation. But obviously it would be better to pay capital gains instead of depreciation recapture. 

Question 2) the depreciation rate of the new, 400k property is independent of your basis going into the new property right?

Where it's still based on the structures value over the 27.5 years.

Thanks for any help, I appreciate you taking the time to read and reply!