David Southwell

There are a number of viable alternative plans for equity stripping and for protecting your home and other assets. We recognize that everybody’s financial situation is unique and work with everybody individually to tailor a plan that best protects their properties.

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William Rogers

Vacation rentals are nothing new. For centuries travelers have opted to stay in private residences over hotels for a variety of reasons. It’s quite common here in Southern California with the lure of our local beaches and mountains for property owners to rent out their properties on a transient basis. Vacationers have long used the Internet to search for available properties by visiting sites like Craigslist or VRBO.com (Vacation Rentals by Owner).

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John Stancil

When one has rental real estate, the sale of that property can have significant tax ramifications. Some of these are good, while others can create significant tax liabilities.

First, the good news. If there were losses that could not be deducted due to the passive activity rules, these losses may be deducted on Schedule E in the year of sale, assuming the property is sold in a taxable transaction.

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Larry Stolberg

On December 18th, President Obama signed H.R. 2029, using the tax (the “Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2015”) and spending bills (Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016) to fund the government for its 2016 fiscal year.

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Larry Stolberg

As you may be aware of there is a federal tax withholding requirement on the sale of U.S. real estate by non-U.S. persons. This does not exempt the vendor from filing a U.S. tax return to report the sale and paying any tax payable or requesting a refund for excess federal tax withholding.

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Larry Stolberg

The T1134 and T1135 are a sample of Canadian foreign information returns such as the U.S. 8938, 5471, or 8865.

A number of Canadians are investing in the U.S. real estate market with a U.S. limited partnership, whose limited partners are solely Canadian residents and the general partner is a U.S. C corporation, whose shareholders are also Canadian residents.

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John Stancil

This is the final article in a five-part series on Passive Activities. (To read the previous articles, click the following links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.)

You own a beach cottage or a mountain cabin. As much as you would like to live there year-round, it just is not practical, so you rent it out when you are not using it. Is this taxable income? Can you deduct a loss? As with so much in taxes, the short answer is “it depends.”

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John Stancil

This is part 4 of 5 in a series on Passive Activities. You can read the previous articles here: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Nothing, it seems, lasts forever, and it is likely there will come a time when you will dispose of your passive rental activity. When this occurs, there are a number of issues that arise. What happens to those suspended losses that were previously denied? What is adjusted basis? What is depreciation recapture? Is there a profit or a loss on the sale? How much tax will I pay?

We will attempt to clarify these issues in this article.

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John Stancil

This is part 3 of 5 in a series on Passive Activities (see Part 1 and Part 2).

Passive loss rules do not apply to real estate professionals. However, the rules for who is a real estate professional for tax purposes are rather specific and the IRS enforces these rules rather strictly. If one is classified as a real estate professional, any losses are treated as ordinary losses and may be deducted against other income sources. Gains are taxed at ordinary income rates, however, income from rental activities is not subject to self-employment tax. However, rent is one of the categories of income that is subject to the Net Investment Income Tax, so there may be an additional 3.8% tax on these profits.

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John Stancil

This is part 2 of 5 in a series on Passive Activities. (Read Part 1 here)

Prior to the Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA), taxpayers were allowed to deduct non-economic losses from passive activities from wage and investment income. Thus, the infamous term “tax shelter” was commonly used in tax planning. However, in the TRA, tax shelters went the way of income averaging and ACRS depreciation, along with other now defunct aspects of our tax code. While the law did not ban such activities, it severely restricted taxpayers’ ability to deduct losses from what is termed “passive activities.”

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John Stancil

This is part 1 of 5 in a series on Passive Activities.

Many things can be classified as rental activities. You rent a car; you book a hotel room; you lease an office machine; you pay for a parking space. All of these fall under the broad category of being rental activities. However, there is a more limited definition of a rental activity for passive loss purposes. If a rental activity is not considered passive, it is treated as a business.

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If you are contemplating selling real-estate property, there are a number of issues that could impact the taxes that you might owe, and there are steps you can take to minimize the gain, defer the gain, or spread it over a number of years.

The first and possibly most important issue is adjusted basis. When computing the gain or loss from the sale of property, your gain or loss is measured from your adjusted basis in the property. Thus, your gain or loss would be the sales price minus the sales expenses and adjusted basis.

So what is adjusted basis? Determining adjusted basis can sometimes be complicated, but in a simplified overview, it is a dollar amount that starts with your acquisition value and Read More