All Forum Posts by: George Walls

I really would appreciate the topic being posted. I'll leave it to you where. As someone in the midst of setting one of these up for the first time, here is a sampling of questions that I have / or had. It might help give yo a sense of where to post.

1) Where do you set one up? Who are the providers?

2) At what point is it worth setting up an LLC with checkbook control? There is a fixed start up cost of around $3K + $800 per yer.

3) What is the math to determine whether it is best to buy a property in a Roth or an IRA or both? For example, you can set up an LLC, fund it with Roth funds rolled over from an IRA but keep the continency funds in the IRA. Then if you need them you can either roll into the Roth and pay taxes or to the LLC and do a % split on your taxes.

4) Given 3 ... who are some good CPA's that can adivse on the details? Still looking and haven't found one yet in Northern LA.

5) Who does loans on these? I found two leanders. N American is by far the largest. They require $50 min loan, 40% downpayment and 20% contingency.

6) What is the math to see if leverage makes sense in an IRA -- if you borrow it is taxed.

7) For #6 are the accounting rules to get to taxable income the same as a non-IRA or are there special rules (need the CPA)

8) Can I pay any expenses out of non-IRA money and deduct them on this year's taxes or must it be out of the IRA. While i would not expect to do so on general repairs, travel, phone, PC, ... might be.

9) If there is a choice on 8 above, can I make the decision at the end of the year based on which gives the better tax result? E.g. deposit funds in the IRA and reimburse myself.

Now you may ask why I would want to do this. It is fairly simple. Most of my liquid assets are in either a 401K or an IRA. I want to diversify into hard assets but can't do it any other way.

Thanks for thinking of this topic.

Given this year's Roth conversion rules, and next year's higher taxes, has anyone done the math to figure out if it makes sense to do a Roth rollover rather than buy in an IRA?

For simplicity assume enough cash on the side to pay the rollover and two options are are: buy a 4 plex in an IRA and a house with after tax cash -- or buy a 4-plex in a Roth and use the after tax cash to pay the taxes on the rollover.