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The Plug: Tax & Accounting for Real Estate and Small Business

๐Ÿ—“๏ธ Weekly emails ๐Ÿ—‚๏ธ Accounting Basics ๐Ÿ’ฐ Tax Strategy and Structuring Basics ๐Ÿ™‡ Internal Controls for Small Business ๐Ÿญ Lessons learned as a partner and running CPA Firms

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Interest Expense - Tracing Rules and Business Impacts

Interest expense is a part of life for nearly everyone. Unless you're a die hard Dave Ramsey (no hate here) ๐Ÿ‘ด๐Ÿป, you likely pay interest expense on your mortgage ๐Ÿก, credit cards ๐Ÿ’ณ, and auto loans ๐Ÿš—. And it's no less prevalent in business. Prior to 1986, all interest expense paid was generally deductible by everyone - people and businesses. Which, if you've ever looked at an interest rate chart for the 1980s, you'd see why this became a serious revenue raising opportunity for the IRS ๐Ÿ‘‡ Cue the...

Today we will be taking a pretty deep dive into an ownership structure common in real estate - the Tenancy in Common, or TIC. ๐Ÿข This may be overly deep if you don't care about real estate tax structuring - but it's exactly the thing I nerd out ๐Ÿฅธ about and enjoy so it's what you get today! Below, we'll talk about: What a TIC is and how it's used ๐Ÿคทโ™‚๏ธ What are the (lesser-known) rules to run a TIC for tax compliance ๐Ÿ”– What does tax filing look like for TIC and TIC owners ๐Ÿ“„ ๐Ÿšจ Before we dive too...

Every Cash Flow Statement I've seen from an accounting software sucks (looking at you, QBO)๐Ÿ˜ฟ. It's a shame because the Statement of Cash Flows (SCF) is one of the most practical financial statements to really understand the health of a business. ๐Ÿฉบ If you read the breakdowns of the downfall of Enron, the SCF and related party disclosures were throwing red flags ๐Ÿšฉ years before it all came down. So what is the SCF and how can you use it? Let's dig in ๐Ÿ‘‡ I created the meme above to demonstrate how...

๐ŸŽง Before we jump in - be sure to listen to Today in Tax Court: Gregory v. Helvering. It's the newest episode and I cover this landmark case on entity structure and business purpose doctrine. ๐ŸŽง Episode 6 - Gregory v. Helve... Jan 9 ยท Today in Tax Court 24:28 If you've been following me for a while, you'll know I preach that a core input of entity selection is what the balance sheet will look like. In general, you do not put appreciating assets in a S-Corp without very good reason. ๐Ÿ™…โ™‚๏ธ That...

One of the first questions to answer when advising entity selection is how the business will be capitalized. ๐Ÿฐ Whether you should run your operations as a S-Corp, C-Corp, or Partnership depends heavily on: What kind of investors will you have (if any), and ๐Ÿ‘จ๐Ÿ‘ฉ๐Ÿ‘ง๐Ÿ‘ฆ Will you have significant liabilities (debt) to run the business ๐Ÿฆ We'll be focusing mainly on the second bullet point today - more specifically the tax impacts that being a partnership versus a S-Corp has on the ability to "access"...

If you've followed me for long, you'll know I'm a big advocate for partnerships as a tax entity structure. S-Corps and C-Corps have their roles, but I see them misused more than you'd imagine. They trap appreciation of assets ๐Ÿชค with sometimes next to no benefit in return. But there's another less-known reason to use a partnership for tax purposes - the ability to deduct unreimbursable expenses. ๐Ÿ‘‡ "Unreimburseable Expenses" Usually, things like travel, meals, or other out of pocket ๐Ÿ‘” costs are...

A happy LP can be your biggest advocate. But as much of the Twitter / X saw, angry LPs can also be a pretty big threat. And that spectrum is of happy / angry is all based on one thing: LP expectations. ๐Ÿซด How the LP expects the asset to perform ๐Ÿข, how they expect distributions ๐Ÿ’ต to work, what they expect the K1 ๐Ÿ“„ to look like - all these impact their mood from month to month and year to year. Many of these things are conditional based on the market - but not all. To control what you can,...

I recently blasted out a 30+ tweet thread about various tax maxims: Roger Ledbetter | RE & SMB CPA @rledbetterCPA A ๐Ÿงต of tax maxims: 10:51 AM โ€ข Nov 29, 2024 8 Retweets 91 Likes Read 9 replies The one I feel most strongly about is that the balance sheet is where the dead bodies are buried. More fraud has been committed on the balance sheet than the income statement ๐Ÿ˜ฑ - it's the only way to move the needle without moving cash. Today, I'll walk through a few examples of how a balance sheet can...

[Before we get into the weeds - I've released a new podcast covering Top Tax Court Cases for 2024. If you enjoy my posts on tax court cases, you should take a listen. Would appreciate any feedback and support. You can find it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts - "Today in Tax Court".] Over the last 16+ years in public accounting, one thing has remained true. There are a surprising number of business owners that despise sending money to the federal government. ๐Ÿคฌ And while spending $1 to save 40ยข is...

The most flexible type of entity, from a federal tax angle, is the LLC. ๐Ÿง˜โ™‚๏ธ The LLC is a shape-shifter of business types, which is great for a lot of different reasons. But it's not so great when it's not respected. โœŠ When an LLC is going to be used as an S-Corp with multiple owners, there is an extra layer ๐Ÿฐ of attention that must be paid to the LLC Operating Agreement (OA). Disregarding the OA language can result in a busted S-election and a C-Corp with years of back taxes. ๐Ÿค• When this...