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Building Land Allocations for the Little People – The Truth About the 80/20 Rule
If you own real estate, you’re no doubt familiar with that wonderful paper loss called depreciation. But you may not be entirely aware that land cannot depreciate. Alas, you must delete part of the price you paid for your real estate land from your original purchase price to generate your tax deduction. A cost segregation study might be the answer. The study, done by an engineer, can accurately allocate the cost between building and land. This price of the allocation can be cost-justified; after all, it can save you tax. But at lower depreciation amounts, the benefits might not outweigh the cost, or, if you’re a tax pro, your client might not believe it does. You’ve still got a tax return to do. Regulation 1.167(a)-5 tells us that we have to do something: In the case of the acquisition on or after March 1, 1913, of a combination of depreciable and nondepreciable property for a lump sum, as for example, buildings and land, the basis for depreciation cannot exceed an amount which bears the same proportion to the lump sum as the value of the depreciable property at the time of acquisition bears to the value of the entire property at that time. It doesn't really give us much guidance. But you may have seen online or heard somewhere about the old 80/20 rule. That’s right, the tax law says 80 percent of cost gets allocated to the building with the remaining going to land. Only, hold on a second, I can’t find a citation for that one. Is it possible there is no such rule? Then again, Reilly’s 19th Law of Tax Planning says that Reilly uses sarcasm when discussing tax. For the truth about this rule, continue reading here.
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CURRENT EDITION
2025 Tax Surprises You Shouldn’t Overlook
There are a few tax rules new for 2025 that may catch some individuals and their tax advisers by surprise. These changes have not received lots of attention either because they are overshadowed by related changes that are more significant, or they were enacted a few years back with a future effective date that arrives in 2025. This article covers changes for 2025 that you will want to be sure to share with clients to avoid surprises at a later date.
Leaving the United States, Part I: Expats
When Americans speak of leaving America, they generally are expressing a desire to live elsewhere in the world for cultural reasons or due to cost of living. These people are called expatriates, aka expats. For clarity, a mere visit to another country does not make you an expat. To be an expat, the move needs to be long-term and often includes working or retiring in the new country. Expats live somewhere outside the U.S., but still have a tax obligation to the U.S. and possibly the country they move to. That will be the focus of this article.
Tax Preparer Hit with Stiff Sentence
John Anthony Castro is a colorful character. He entered several Republican primaries seeking the Presidential slot after failing to win the primary for a Senate seat representing Texas. He sued to have our once and future President Donald Trump be removed from the ballot on Fourteenth Amendment Section 3 grounds. As we can easily infer, those suits went nowhere. But more than anything, John Anthony Castro was a tax guy with a virtual practice with locations in four cities. Not anymore. Now he is resident in a Bureau of Prisons facility – the Federal Medical Center Fort Worth. On October 30, 2024, Judge Terry Means sentenced Castro to 188 months in prison, followed by one year of supervised release and restitution of $277,243, following his conviction on 33 counts of “Aiding and Assisting in the Preparation and Presentation of a False and Fraudulent Return.” Does the sad story of John Anthony Castro hold any lessons for us? Perhaps.
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