All Forum Posts by: Nick Am

Hi Tim, 

Except depreciation, all the losses on Sch-E are material losses. You indeed have to spend that much money. This in no way a profitable business. A landlord cant deduct home office, cant save for his retirement, nothing.  

In fact, given current boom in Stock market, one is way better off investing there. If one is a high W2 earner, real estate is not the place. Stock market investment is much better. 

TD and Congress needs to come up with more relaxed tax regulations to make investing in real estate lucrative again. May be make OZs permanent, let passive losses offset active income, etc. 

I own a rental property through a single member LLC (say LLC-A) and I am in process of purchasing another property under the same LLC-A. Currently, I am self managing all the operations. LLC-A is a disregarded entity for tax purposes and I report the rental income/expense on Sch-E.

I want to setup a management S-corp (LLC-B) to look after the management of properties owned by LLC-A. For this I plan on charging 10% of rental income as management fees to LLC-A.

Some of the benefits of this vertical integration brought by LLC-B is:

(a) Ability to contribute to retirement plans (solo 401K, etc)

(b) home office deduction

(c) health insurance plan premium, among others. 

Some of the issues I have clarified so far from this and other forums:

1. Is juice worth the squeeze? --> Definitely. If the management fees stay in Sch-E, it is exposed to ordinary income both at Federal and state level, which is way higher than SE taxes of 9.55% (15.75-6.2 (personal social tax already maxed out)).

2. Why make passive rental income active and pay self-employment? --> Passive income doesnt mean tax free income. It is in fact taxed at much higher rate as ordinary income. 

3. Business justification of LLC-B --> This is can be a problem. However, I see this as a vertical integration and bringing more capabilities in house to make more money instead of hiring an outsider firm.

My question is such a setup valid? Has anyone done this without creating troubles with IRS? Can there be any issues due to business purpose of LLC-B? Want to hear opinion from the experts in the field here.