Real Estate Tax Secrets of the Rich

Product Details

IRS insider Sandy Botkin reveals the tax strategies you can use to increase your ROIs by as much as 20 percent-whether you're a home owner or a real estate investor. This accessible guide demystifies real estate taxes and shows how to achieve maximum benefit when buying, owning, selling, managing, repairing, and investing in properties.

• Features numerous forms, charts, sample documents, and other valuable tax-saving tools.
• Gives you the basics on real estate taxes and shows how to take full advantage of tax loopholes.

Biographical Note

Sandy Botkin attorney and certified public accountant, is CEO and Principal Lecturer of the Tax Reduction Institute in Washington, D.C. Along with his many years of financial experience, Botkin was also a legal specialist in the Office of Chief Counsel for the Internal Revenue Service.

Table of Contents

• Dedications and Acknowledgments.
• Introduction.
• Part 1: Overview of Real Estate.
  • Chapter 1. Why you should own your home.
  • Chapter 2. Buy a home or die in poverty.
• Part 2: Tax Goodies from Owning a Home.
  • Chapter 3. Tax basis - the starting place for all deductions.
  • Chapter 4. IRS record-keeping requirements to bulletproof your basis.
  • Chapter 5. Why making improvement to your home is much more valuable than making repairs.
  • Chpter 6. Maximizing the new mortgage interest rules.
  • Chapter 7. The point of points.
  • Chapter 8. Maximizing your deductions when building a home.
  • Chapter 9. Maximizing the effect of real estate taxes.
• Part 3: Maximizing Tax Benefits when You Dispose of Your Home.
  • Chapter 10. Excluding gain when you sell your home - an overview of the new universal exclusion.
  • Chapter 11. Exceptions to the two-year rule.
  • Chapter 12. Divorce and death implications.
  • Chapter 13. Using an S Corporation to avoid the two-year rule.
• Part 4: Introduction to Tax Planning for Buying and Looking for Rental Property.
  • Chapter 14. Introduction to investment property.
  • Chapter 15. Understanding depreciation.
  • Chapter 16. How to evaluate rates of return for residential investment property.
  • Chapter 17. How to deduct the cost of looking for property.
• Part 5: Tax Goodies Incurred while Owning Rental Property.
  • Chapter 18. Minimizing passive loss problems.
  • Chapter 19. Maximizing your depreciation deductions.
  • Chapter 20. Making land deductible.
  • Chapter 21. Splitting income by hiring family members.
  • Chapter 22. Why repairs on investment property are important.
• Part 6: Minimizing Taxes when Disposing of Real Estate.
  • Chapter 23. How to calculate gain or loss.
  • Chapter 24. When to use seller financing.
  • Chapter 25. How to avoid all gain on the sale of investment property using like-kind exchanges.
  • Chapter 26. Sales to relatives.
• Part 7: Miscellaneous Real Estate Tax Considerations.
  • Chapter 27. Understanding vacation home and second home rules.
  • Chapter 28. Tax benefits of owning motels, hotels, and bed-and-breakfasts.
  • Chapter 29. Frequently asked questions.
  • Appendix 1. Recommended tax resources.
  • Appendix 2. Leveraging today's technology.
  • Appendix 3. Forms.
  • Index.