The Best Options To Save on Taxes After Selling Your First Flip

Anderson Business Advisors Podcast

Welcome to another episode of Tax Tuesday. Today, attorneys Toby Mathis, Esq., and Eliot Thomas, Esq., delve into listener questions around various tax and business strategy questions. Topics include the active vs. passive income classification for S-corp distributions in a physical therapy home health business, the optimal timing for cost segregation and bonus depreciation in short-term rental activities, and the tax implications of transitioning from short to long-term rentals. Other discussions delved into Opportunity Zones, S-corp taxation for owner draws, classification of employees, IRA to foundation transfers, tax-saving strategies for property flips, overlooked investor deductions, 1031 exchanges for rental properties, and the feasibility of lease options in Roth IRAs.
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Highlights/Topics:

• "We are starting an S-corporation for physical therapy home health business. My wife and I will be the only shareholders. My wife will run the business and see patients. I only plan to invest into the business. We'll be a limited partner. Will my distributions from the S-corp be considered as passive income since I am not materially participating in the business?" - No. It's all going to be active income.
• "If you started short-term rental activity in November 2023 when the property was purchased, can you use cost segregation and bonus depreciation in 2023, or is it still better to wait until 2024?" - more than likely, you're going to be better off in 2023.
• "If I buy a house in September, use it as a short-term rental for a month until October, and then do long-term rental starting in November for the STR, short-term rental, I or my spouse will actively manage the property, can I still take the bonus depreciation in first year and offset my W-2 income?" - It's all going to look at how much time did you rent it and what was the average stay.
• "If I put money into an opportunity zone and then sell after 10 years, does it all come out tax-free or just any growth? - If you've had capital gains, you sold some stock, sold some property, you have true capital gains, you can invest them in what's called an Opportunity zone fund.
• "If you are an S-corporation and pay yourself a regular salary, but also take money from what Intuit calls ‘owner draw’, how is that taxed?"
• "Do all employees have to be W-2 employees under an S-corp, or can they be contractors?" - the W -2, as we pointed out earlier, that's going to be subject to employment tax. All of this income is subject to income tax, whatever your bracket's at, both streams.
• "Can an IRA balance be transferred to a foundation tax-free and also allow the owner a tax deduction? Can I create the foundation and operate the foundation receiving the contribution?" - there's two ways to do it. I receive the money, pay tax on it, then contribute to a charity and I would take a deduction. Or I could put up to $100,000 a year of my distributions directly into the charity and now I don't pay tax on it,
• "We sold our first flip at the beginning of the year and would like to know if there is any way at this moment to save as much as possible from being taxed, i.e. invested in the next flip or something else to avoid the "loss". Also, if we have a loss for our S-corp in 2023, could we see that capital gain to be offset in 2024?" -it's easy to get these things kind of mixed up. Flips are ordinary income, not capital gains.
• "What are typical operating and general expenses you've seen overlooked when investors file deductions?" - The way you avoid missing deductions is you have good bookkeeping, okay?
• "Can I move into a rental house I have for 15 years? Does it still qualify for a 1031 at a later date? I assume you mean when you move into it, it says a primary residence. Does it qualify for a 121 exclusion after two years?" - if we've moved into it, I'm assuming we made it our primary residence, it's no longer in a trader business, So you lose 1031 capability. 121 is for a personal residence.
• "Can you do a lease option assignment in a Roth IRA? Can you do a sandwich lease option in a Roth IRA?" - Yes and yes. if we have a true option, true sandwich leases option, my understanding is yes, you can do them.

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