Serena Brown

Real Estate Investor, Beware

Real Estate Investor beware that there are some changes to the tax law that will affect you negatively when filing a loss.  It may even lead to an audit. 

The IRS made changes to the tax that will affect 2007 tax returns if the investor claims a loss.  In addition, just reporting a loss may cause your taxes to be audited.

The new law has to do with the real estate investor classification.  The investor can be classified as a real estate professional.   Under the new law, the investor qualifies as a professional, regardless if licensed real estate agent or broker by working at least 750 hours on real estate activities.  The IRS considers real estate activities to be renting, leasing, converting, operating, developing, redeveloping, managing, constructing, and acquiring of real estate. 

In addition, as a real estate investor you are limited on your deduction to your passive income in the amount of $25,000.  That amount decreases as your passive income increases and tops $100,000.  Still yet, the eligibility for the deduction disappears as your income goes over $150,000.

The reason this change came about was due to the increase in number of investors during the market “boom”. 

The ramification of these modifications to the tax law hit the investor who works a full time W2 job the hardest.  Remember, the losses can only be taken on passive income.

However, under that same law there are two classifications for passive losses.  There is material participating passive loss and passive loss. 

The material participating rule requires that the investor work on each property for 500 hours.  The work can be any or all the qualifying activities listed above.  The investor can also opt to combine all properties under one 500 hour block, but the election must be made at the beginning of the tax year. 

Another tax law change is that in the designation of a limited partnership’s interest.  The properties owned and/or held under this entity is no longer considered material participating, so are not eligible for the deduction if there is a loss. 

It is important to note that no longer can research of potential properties that the investor is considering adding to his or her portfolio a valid passive activity. 

Keeping accurate records is crucial.  The investor needs to keep date, time, location, and activities and in some cases it may be helpful to have photos to show evidence.

The changes mention above came out in December of 2007 and are retroactive to 2007 and may be earlier tax returns.  Have your accountant review your current and previous returns to make sure you are in compliance. 

Written by Serena Brown

http://www.taylorbrownrealestatetalks.com

Article Tags: Real Estate, Passive Income

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