I'm a California resident and am thinking of setting up a California LLC as the holding company to own Texas LLCs that will own the property. After consulting with a tax attorney, he said I could also setup a Delaware LLC as the manager for all the LLCs so that I could get the benefit of anonymity. I'm wondering could I just setup a Delaware LLC as the holding company and just pay the FTB tax in CA instead of setting up 2 LLCs just for anonymity?
Regardless of whether you set up a CA or DE LLC, it must be registered in TX to lease property. You could also just set up a TX LLC. I couldn't tell you if you would still have to pay CA FTB tax on a TX LLC.
Re: anonymity All you can do is make it more difficult to find you; it will never be impossible to find you. Anyone who says different is selling something. Consider: cartels, Mafioso, and foreign operatives would all love to have absolute anonymity. Chances are, you are not as well funded as these groups. Not saying there might not be other advantages to be had by using a tiered structure, just not hiding your identity.
Being a California resident can be a trick when navigating LLCs with due to the franchise tax. While using an LLC or Corp to own propertly remotely wouldnt require a foregin filing in the state of the property (property can be held remotely without needing a foregin filing as its not "doing business" in the state), the issue you will run into with an LLC or corporation in CA is the yearly fee. From the CPAs we work with, just being a CA resident puts you at risk of an entity, other than trust, being subject to the franchise tax. To avoid the yearly fee, we recommend using a DST. It avoids the CA franchise tax, is scalable so you can add multiple assets under it while benefiting from the liability minimixation structure of child series' , and it can streamline your operations by using one set of books, bank account, etc. The DST can minimize liability by having each property in its own child series, streamline your operations, and minimize taxes.