All Forum Posts by: Ron Gallagher

 Meaning like if my parents deposited more than $28,000 into that joint account then they would have to file a gift tax return for that year?  If so, I think we are in the clear because I would be the only one depositing money into that account and not them.  What if I deposit more than $28,000 in that joint account in a year? I plan to do that so would I fill out a gift tax form for 2018 since the IRS could consider it to be a gift to my parents? I am setting up the bank account so I am the one who has to pay taxes on the interest earned and not my parents.  Should I not put the money in a joint account to make it clear the money I deposit into that account is not a gift back to my parents?

Thanks so much for the information.  My parents spoke to their CPA and their CPA said that they could give me all the money as a gift and it would not be a taxable event for either of us because my parents can gift $5 million+ over their lifetimes. My parents told me they didn't expect the money back so they suggested that I put the money that I would have used to pay them back in a joint saving account (in my name and my mother's name) so both me and my parents can have access to it, if either of us need to tap into that cash.  Does this sound right? 

Just to be clear, under the new 2018 tax plan there is no need for us to prepay property taxes on investment properties, correct?

I work as a web developer as my day job and moonlight as a landlord so I can answer any website related questions you have.  Depending on your requirements it may be very easy to do what you want using an API or web service offered by a company like Zillow:

https://www.zillow.com/howto/api/APIOverview.htm

You can just embed their content into your site and you are done!

Another vote for cozy.co -- the tenants can choose if they want their good rental payment history to be reported to Experian which is a value add for younger tenants that may not have much credit history. Also I can send out one time payment requests to my tenants.  This is handy when dividing up the utility bills in the property I am house hacking or when one of my tenants wanted to rent my parking spot but only for one month or if you need to collect a late fee.  Cozy is very flexible and you can keep track of which tenant has paid and when.  You can't really do that with venmo if all your other venmo transactions are mixed in with your tenant's payments. I suppose if you only have one or two tenants venmo would work but I have 12 tenants that I self-manage right now so cozy is the way to go for me.

That does make sense. Brian said I should be paying interest at least at AFR... 

http://resources.evans-legal.com/?p=2591

This table in the link above shows the short term AFR (I plan on paying my parents back within one year) is 1.51% so I should pay my parents back with 1.51% interest to make it clear to the IRS that this was a loan and not gift money?

I didn't know that loan repayments are not taxable, and now I understand it will be better to pay my parents back into an account that I have no ownership of so it's clear it is a loan repayment.  @Brian Schmelzlen said I should be paying my parents back with some interest, is this to make it clear that it is a loan to the IRS? Wouldn't it be better to pay my parents back with equal monthly payments with no interest so both the loan money to me and the loan repayments to my parents are all non-taxable events? What's the advantage of me paying the loan back with interest?

@Nicholas Aiola - My parents gave me money to help with the down payment on a house I bought and now that I am going to start paying my parents back the money they gave me and my mother suggested I put my monthly payments in a joint bank account with my name as the primary account holder and my mother and father's name also on the account.  This way the money is technically mine and my parent's.  Did my mother just figure out a tax loophole way to pay my parents back the money they gave me without it being considered income (and therefore taxed) for them?

Not to hijack this thread with my own situation but I can see there are times when renting would make sense. I currently live in the basement unit of a house I just bought. After this last property purchase, I have no more cash to buy another property right now and my DTI is maxed out after getting this latest mortgage but one way I could increase cash flow would be to become a renter and then rent out the basement unit I am currently living in for more money then I would be paying in rent. I could also rent out the basement unit I'm currently living in on airbnb and potentially make even more money.

This happened to me too. The spammers were too lazy to add images to their fake ad so watermarking the images wouldn't have helped. Sad because craigslist is still the most popular way for people to find rentals in the DC area. I got an angry phone call from one of my potential tenants asking why I posted a lower price (spammer price) when I told him a higher price earlier that day when we met at the property. He ultimately didn't rent from me and I think that the CL spammer had some impact on his decision.  

How does this scam play out?  I assume they try to collect a security deposit from the victim but I assume most people wouldn't wire money for a security deposit without seeing the place or asking a lot of questions.  It's hard to get people to sign a lease and give you a security deposit even as the legit owner, so if the scammers are this good perhaps I need to use them to rent out my properties for real!

Another option is scam the scammers and steal pictures of a castle owned by a Nigerian prince and see if I can get a security deposit from someone over there.