Tax Planning for a REI with W2 income

[Abhishek Joshi]

Hello

I wanted to seek help on "proactive" tax planning from qualified professionals <CPAs>. Our family profile is W2 wages <me and spouse>, and a few LTR properties. FWIW, we have been breaking even on those properties more or less over the past decade. How could we plan better, particularly as W2 income earners, so that we could legally save on our tax obligations with some smarter planning. I thank you for taking the time for reading my post, and for your inputs on the same. 

Warmly,
AJ

[Michael Plaks]

Quote from @Abhishek Joshi:

I wanted to seek help on "proactive" tax planning from qualified professionals . Our family profile is W2 wages , and a few LTR properties. FWIW, we have been breaking even on those properties more or less over the past decade. How could we plan better, particularly as W2 income earners, so that we could legally save on our tax obligations with some smarter planning. I thank you for taking the time for reading my post, and for your inputs on the same. 

I'm going to tell you something you don't want to hear, because there will be plenty of people FALSELY promising you what you want to hear.

Two full-time W2 people with long-term rentals are basically limited to breaking even where you already are. No extra depreciation, cost segregation blah blah blah is going to help. 

In order to overcome those limitations, you would have to either drastically change your business model to short-term rentals (which sometimes may not be feasible at all or may be detrimental to your business) or drastically change your lifestyle (such as one of you quitting your W2 job and becoming a full-time investor.)  

If you are willing to explore those drastic changes - sure, an experienced tax professional like myself and my colleagues on this forum can help.

But if you're hoping that somebody will teach you "secrets" of how to reduce your taxes in your CURRENT (W2/LTR) situation - there're none, outside of general tax planning like maximizing your retirement contributions etc.