Book Review: The Book on Tax Strategies for the Savvy RE Investor

As I mentioned earlier, I purchased and have been reading The Book on Tax Strategies for the Savvy Real Estate Investor by Amanda Han. And her husband, of course, another real estate power duo. I enjoy her writing style, it is an easy ready for a heavy topic.

I think I'm glad that I didn't learn anything earth shattering, that I already know where we aren't being as aggressive as we could, and that we aren't missing anything huge at this point. That we should get tax advice when we are ready to sell or trade rather than learning as we go.

As a CPA I can appreciate the point that not all CPA's are experts in all areas of tax. Heck, some CPA's don't know much about tax at all! After reading this book I do have more appreciation for the importance of a specialized tax advisor. And a realization that this resource does not need to be local, I hadn't really considered having a long distance resource. I was hoping for a little more info on how to choose a tax advisor, and I am curious what the cost is, give or take.

I did learn the term solo 401k,that was new to me. I thought it would be fun to design a weekend sandwich (a tax deductible trip with pre-planned real estate activities), but Bruce isn't on board.

In the course of writing the book I have not gotten any better about tracking our mileage. I am hoping we can get to e-storage and loved the idea of photographing receipts.

I enjoyed pondering a few stats the authors threw out:

The average person loses 35% to 50% of their income to various types of taxes each year. We're at 30%, so I guess I should stop complaining!  I'm sure living in a relatively low property tax area and keeping our housing modest rather than what we could affort helps with that.

The average American pays more money in taxes than they spend on food, clothing, and shelter combined. When I compared that to our finances, at first I thought we were under, but then I remembered the sales tax, and that put us over. It's always struck me that we pay more in taxes than the median household income of our county.

Great book, especially if you don't have any foundation in taxes.