All Forum Posts by: Basit Siddiqi

It might be best to consult with a CPA before you do the conversion.

In a nutshell, we are calander year taxpayers. Therefore, we report income that we earned during the year, which includes wages earned from January to December.
We would also include the roth conversion that is done during the year.

It depends on how much of a conversion you do, how much other income you have, what state you live in, your filing status, etc

Best of luck

it appears that your accountant is not familiar with real estate taxation.

Being a real estate professional does not make your activity subject to self-employment taxes.

You may want to consider looking for a new accontant.

Using turbo tax if you have a simple return is okay. 

It is hard to mess up a return if you have just a W-2 and some interest / brokerage accounts.

I personally think it is better suited to hire an accountant if you have a rental or a business.

One thing you would benefit by having an accountant is that you have someone to ask questions to throughout the year.

Best of luck

As others have mentioned, Texas does not have a state income tax. It does have a franchise tax obligation for those who have an entity that does business within the states.

Just make sure that the accountant you choose is familiar with this concept.

best of luck to you in your search.

To maximize your benefits, you want to confirm that the property will be treated as active instead of passive. Furthermore, you will likely want to get a cost segregation study to accelerate the depreciation in the first year.

Best of luck!

why not get the conventional loan right away?

The issue with the refinance within a year is that you would have to repay lender fees again which are not cheap. Furthermore, refinance rates are a bit higher than an original loan.

Do you need to have your bookkeeping done on a monthly basis?

Have you considered scaling back and doing it every 3 months to save you on time?

If you have a PM Company doing most of the work, they likely give you a year end statement which you can just populate into Stessa instead of doing it monthly.

Best of luck!

I like the concept of keeping things simple.

I would buy the property separately without your friend.
It might sound fun doing a business with a friend but a business arrangement is almost like a marriage.

One issue that I can see is the timing of sale - who gets to decide when to sell the property
How much time will each person spend?
Is your friend going to pay rent for the area that he will live in? If yes, who gets to dictate rent increases on his unit?

The lifetime estate / gift exclusion increased this year with the passing of the new tax bill.

Is your mother in law above this exclusion amount?
If she is not close to the exclusion amount, I would just take the full $200,000 and have her file a gift tax return.

The two year rule only applies to the sale of a personal residence where you live and own the personal residence.

It does not apply for a property that will be flipped. It might apply for a 'live in flip'. However, the excluded gain will only apply to the partner that lived in the property.

Best of luck!