Estate Tax Quotes

I don't know how you feel, but I'm pretty sick of church people. You know what they ought to do with churches? Tax them. If holy people are so interested in politics, government, and public policy, let them pay the price of admission like everybody else. The Catholic Church alone could wipe out the national debt if all you did was tax their real estate.

this fear of growing to resemble Europe was part of the reason why the United States in 1910–1920 pioneered a very progressive estate tax on large fortunes, which were deemed to be incompatible with US values, as well as a progressive income tax on incomes thought to be excessive. Perceptions of inequality, redistribution, and national identity changed a great deal over the course of the twentieth century, to put it mildly.

When you get rid of the estate tax,” he (Warren Buffet) said, “you’re basically handing over command of the country’s resources to people who didn’t earn it. It’s like choosing the 2020 Olympic team by picking the children of all the winners at the 2000 Games.

With small companies, my investment strategy is to be out of the stock in a year. My real estate strategy, on the other hand, is to start small and keep trading the properties up for bigger properties and, therefore, delaying paying taxes on the gain. This allows the value to increase dramatically. I generally hold real estate less than seven years.

If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him.

You should waste it.” “What’s that?” “You should be at the beach, like today. You should get stoned and drunk and have loads of sex.” She takes another drag off her cigarette. “I think the saddest thing in the world is a twenty-five-year-old talking about the stock market. Or taxes. Or real estate, goddamn it! That’s all you’ll talk about when you’re forty. Real estate! Any twenty-five-year-old who says the word refinance should be taken out and shot. Talk about love and music and poetry. Things everyone forgets they ever thought were important. Waste every day, that’s what I say.

In the first place, just as income tax returns allow us to study changes in income inequality, estate tax returns enable us to study changes in the inequality of wealth.

just as income tax returns allow us to study changes in income inequality, estate tax returns enable us to study changes in the inequality of wealth.

All you have to do is look at Colorado: real estate is up, 30,000 jobs added, retail is up, state tax [revenues] up.

Among other strategies, he set up a “charitable lead trust” that enabled him to pass on his estate to his sons without inheritance taxes, so long as the sons donated the accruing interest on the principal to charity for twenty years. To maximize their self-interest, in other words, the Koch boys were compelled to be charitable. Tax avoidance was thus the original impetus for the Koch brothers’ extraordinary philanthropy. As David Koch later explained, “So for 20 years, I had to give away all that income, and I sort of got into it.

The fact that Trump paid no tax came to light when casino regulators issued a public report on his fitness to own a casino. Trump’s tax returns showed negative income. That’s because Congress lets big real estate investors offset their income from salaries, stock market gains, consulting fees, and other income with losses from depreciation in the value of their buildings. If these paper losses for the declining value of their buildings are greater than their cash income from other sources, real estate investors can legally tell the IRS that their income is less than zero and no federal income tax is due. Trump

For example, “1031” is jargon for Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code, which allows a seller to delay paying taxes on a piece of real estate that is sold for a capital gain through an exchange for a more expensive piece of real estate. Real estate is one investment vehicle that allows such a great tax advantage.

Such refinements, under the odious name of luxury, have been severely arraigned by the moralists of every age; and it might perhaps be more conducive to the virtue, as well as happiness, of mankind, if all possessed the necessaries, and none the superfluities, of life. But in the present imperfect condition of society, luxury, though it may proceed from vice or folly, seems to be the only means that can correct the unequal distribution of property. The diligent mechanic, and the skilful artist, who have obtained no share in the division of the earth, receive a voluntary tax from the possessors of land; and the latter are prompted, by a sense of interest, to improve those estates, with whose produce they may purchase additional pleasures.

Neofeudalism: Much as warlords seized land in the Norman Conquest and levied rent on subject populations (starting with the Domesday Book, the great land census of England and Wales ordered by William the Conqueror), so today’s financialized mode of warfare uses debt leverage and foreclosure to pry away land, natural resources and economic infrastructure. The commons are privatized by bondholders and bankers, gaining control of government and shifting taxes onto labor and small-scale industry. Household accounts, corporate balance sheets and public budgets are earmarked increasingly to pay real estate rent, monopoly rent, interest and financial fees, and to bear the taxes shifted off rentier wealth. The rentier oligarchy makes itself into a hereditary aristocracy lording it over the population at large from gated communities that are the modern counterpart to medieval castles with their moats and parapets.

Using other people’s money is literally the best way to reduce your taxes in the I quadrant. That’s because you can take deductions for the purchases you make with other people’s money. Depreciation on real estate is a particularly great way to take tax benefits on someone else’s money. You get a deduction not just for the portion of the real estate you paid for with your own money, but you also get a depreciation deduction for the portion paid for with the bank’s money.

she says, "Well, I hope you're making good use of youth." Less, cross-legged on his towel and pink as a boiled shrimp:" I don't know." She nods, "You should waste it." "What's that?" "You should be at the beach, like today. You should get stoned and drunk and have loads of sex." She takes another drag off her cigarette. "I think the saddest thing in the world is a twenty-five-year-old talking about the stock market. Or taxes. Or real estate, goddamn it! That's all you'll talk about when you're forty. Real estate! Any twenty-five-year-old who says the word refinance should be taken out and shot. Talk about love and music and poetry. Things everyone forgets they ever through were important. Waste everyday, that's what I say.

Yessir, they’s big money involved in this park fight, that’s the story. Dyer’s the mouthpiece for them east coast developers that has fought that park idea for years; them boys are workin day and night to grab that real estate before all them nature-lovers and such get the Glades nailed down by the federl gov’mint. You ain’t seen all that stuff in the papers? Gettin the public fired up against the feds for wastin half of Florida on this big green nothin? Stead of sellin off that land and cuttin taxes?

The rental income served as a dividend, so to speak, but even at an early age, I focused more on the home appreciation. I came to understand the tax advantages of home ownership, implications of depreciation, and the opportunity to use the homes as leverage in borrowing money.

In regard to justice, one might also ask: What of same-sex, heterosexual couples who live with and cherish each other, but who do not engage in homosexual acts? Are they less worthy of marriage? If the only thing that distinguishes them from homosexual couples is sodomitical behavior, and if only homosexual couples are to be extended the privilege of marriage, then something of special merit must obtain precisely to the act of sodomy itself. Why should sodomy be privileged in this way? Otherwise, why would marriage not be appropriate for chaste or heterosexual same-sex friendship? The tax advantages obtaining to an estate left by one spouse to another are great. Should they be only for lesbian and homosexual couples and not, say, for brothers, sisters, or others who may love each other and live together?

If government had declined to build racially separate public housing in cities where segregation hadn’t previously taken root, and instead had scattered integrated developments throughout the community, those cities might have developed in a less racially toxic fashion, with fewer desperate ghettos and more diverse suburbs. If the federal government had not urged suburbs to adopt exclusionary zoning laws, white flight would have been minimized because there would have been fewer racially exclusive suburbs to which frightened homeowners could flee. If the government had told developers that they could have FHA guarantees only if the homes they built were open to all, integrated working-class suburbs would likely have matured with both African Americans and whites sharing the benefits. If state courts had not blessed private discrimination by ordering the eviction of African American homeowners in neighborhoods where association rules and restrictive covenants barred their residence, middle-class African Americans would have been able gradually to integrate previously white communities as they developed the financial means to do so. If churches, universities, and hospitals had faced loss of tax-exempt status for their promotion of restrictive covenants, they most likely would have refrained from such activity. If police had arrested, rather than encouraged, leaders of mob violence when African Americans moved into previously white neighborhoods, racial transitions would have been smoother. If state real estate commissions had denied licenses to brokers who claimed an “ethical” obligation to impose segregation, those brokers might have guided the evolution of interracial neighborhoods. If school boards had not placed schools and drawn attendance boundaries to ensure the separation of black and white pupils, families might not have had to relocate to have access to education for their children. If federal and state highway planners had not used urban interstates to demolish African American neighborhoods and force their residents deeper into urban ghettos, black impoverishment would have lessened, and some displaced families might have accumulated the resources to improve their housing and its location. If government had given African Americans the same labor-market rights that other citizens enjoyed, African American working-class families would not have been trapped in lower-income minority communities, from lack of funds to live elsewhere. If the federal government had not exploited the racial boundaries it had created in metropolitan areas, by spending billions on tax breaks for single-family suburban homeowners, while failing to spend adequate funds on transportation networks that could bring African Americans to job opportunities, the inequality on which segregation feeds would have diminished. If federal programs were not, even to this day, reinforcing racial isolation by disproportionately directing low-income African Americans who receive housing assistance into the segregated neighborhoods that government had previously established, we might see many more inclusive communities. Undoing the effects of de jure segregation will be incomparably difficult. To make a start, we will first have to contemplate what we have collectively done and, on behalf of our government, accept responsibility.

If you look at the estate planning industry today, the basic strategy begins with identifying the number of heirs. Why? To divide the estate up amongst as many heirs as possible, utilizing all the gift and transfer techniques. One of the first rules of war is to “divide and conquer.” And so, if I'm dividing the assets up, I'm setting that family up for failure. Our findings show that in all too many situations, traditional planning has done more to destroy families than taxes will ever do. Traditional estate planning operates around the four D's: Divide the assets, defer those assets downstream as far as possible, then dump them on what most times are the ill-prepared heirs, and watch those ultimately dissipate. It's been said that only two percent of family wealth ever makes it past the third generation. So I think that's all you need to know about the effectiveness of traditional estate planning.

You should be at the beach, like today. You should get stoned and drunk and have loads of sex.” She takes another drag off her cigarette. “I think the saddest thing in the world is a twenty-five-year-old talking about the stock market. Or taxes. Or real estate, goddamn it! That’s all you’ll talk about when you’re forty. Real estate! Any twenty-five-year-old who says the word refinance should be taken out and shot. Talk about love and music and poetry. Things everyone forgets they ever thought were important. Waste every day, that’s what I say.

What inducement has the farmer, while following the plough, to lay aside his peaceful pursuit, and go to war with the farmer of another country? Or what inducement has the manufacturer? What is dominion to them, or to any class of men in a nation? Does it add an acre to any man's estate, or raise its value? Are not conquest and defeat each of the same price, and taxes the never-failing consequence? -Though this reasoning may be good to a nation, it is not so to a government. War is the Pharo table of governments, and nations the dupes of the game.

Though domestic black money is an expression of no-confidence in the government of India, some part of the domestic black money is used in productive activities like real estate, trade, construction, mining, transport, restaurants and other businesses. As previously stated, illicit money kept abroad is a no-confidence vote in India itself—its stability and its people. The illicit money kept in tax havens abroad is, by and large, not used for domestic purposes unless it is round-tripped through share markets or foreign direct investment (FDI) to domestic operations.

Death duties in Harcourt’s time were a comparatively modest 8 percent on estates valued at £1 million or more, but they proved to be such a reliable source of revenue, and so popular with the millions who didn’t have to pay them, that they were raised again and again until by the eve of the Second World War they stood at 60 percent—a level that would make even the richest eyes water. At the same time, income taxes were raised repeatedly and other new taxes invented—the Undeveloped Land Duty, the Incremental Value Duty, the Super Tax—all of which fell disproportionately on those with a lot of land and plummy accents.

Robert Jordan, wiping out the stew bowl with bread, explained how the income tax and inheritance tax worked. 'But the big estates remain. Also, there are taxes on the land,' he said. 'But surely the big proprietors and the rich will make a revolution against such taxes. Such taxes appear to me to be revolutionary. They will revolt against the government when they see that they are threatened, exactly as the fascists have done here,' Primitivo said. 'It is possible.' 'Then you will have to fight in your country as we fight here.' 'Yes, we will have to fight.' 'But are there not many fascists in your country?' 'There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find it out when the time comes.

She says, “Well, I hope you’re making good use of youth.” Less, cross-legged on his towel and pink as a boiled shrimp: “I don’t know.” She nods. “You should waste it.” “What’s that?” “You should be at the beach, like today. You should get stoned and drunk and have loads of sex.” She takes another drag off her cigarette. “I think the saddest thing in the world is a twenty-five-year-old talking about the stock market. Or taxes. Or real estate, goddamn it! That’s all you’ll talk about when you’re forty. Real estate! Any twenty-five-year-old who says the word refinance should be taken out and shot. Talk about love and music and poetry. Things everyone forgets they ever thought were important. Waste every day, that’s what I say.

As a candidate, Trump’s praise of Putin had been a steady theme. In the White House, his fidelity to Russia’s president had continued, even as he lambasted other world leaders, turned on aides and allies, fired the head of the FBI, bawled out his attorney general, and defenestrated his chief ideologue, Steve Bannon. It was Steele’s dossier that offered a compelling explanation for Trump’s unusual constancy vis-à-vis Russia. First, there was Moscow’s kompromat operation against Trump going back three decades, to the Kryuchkov era. If Trump had indulged in compromising behavior, Putin knew of it. Second, there was the money: the cash from Russia that had gone into Trump’s real estate ventures. The prospect of a lucrative deal in Moscow to build a hotel and tower, a project that was still being negotiated as candidate Trump addressed adoring crowds. And then there were the loans. These had helped rescue Trump after 2008. They had come from a bank that was simultaneously laundering billions of dollars of Russian money. Finally, there was the possibility that the president had other financial connections to Moscow, as yet undisclosed, but perhaps hinted at by his missing tax returns. Together, these factors appeared to place Trump under some sort of obligation. One possible manifestation of this was the president’s courting of Putin in Hamburg. Another was the composition of his campaign team and government, especially in its first iteration. Wherever you looked there was a Russian trace.

Ultimately, the World Top Incomes Database (WTID), which is based on the joint work of some thirty researchers around the world, is the largest historical database available concerning the evolution of income inequality; it is the primary source of data for this book.24 The book’s second most important source of data, on which I will actually draw first, concerns wealth, including both the distribution of wealth and its relation to income. Wealth also generates income and is therefore important on the income study side of things as well. Indeed, income consists of two components: income from labor (wages, salaries, bonuses, earnings from nonwage labor, and other remuneration statutorily classified as labor related) and income from capital (rent, dividends, interest, profits, capital gains, royalties, and other income derived from the mere fact of owning capital in the form of land, real estate, financial instruments, industrial equipment, etc., again regardless of its precise legal classification). The WTID contains a great deal of information about the evolution of income from capital over the course of the twentieth century. It is nevertheless essential to complete this information by looking at sources directly concerned with wealth. Here I rely on three distinct types of historical data and methodology, each of which is complementary to the others.25 In the first place, just as income tax returns allow us to study changes in income inequality, estate tax returns enable us to study changes in the inequality of wealth.26 This

sighed. “I can’t say that you weren’t expected.” “I’m just going to be walking around here and taking some measurements. It says here… you own eighty acres? That is one of the most gorgeous mansions I have ever seen,” he rambled on. “It must have cost you millions. I could never afford such a beauty. Well, heck, for that matter I couldn’t afford the millions of dollars in taxes a house like this would assess, let alone such a pricey property. Do you have an accountant?” Zo opened her mouth to respond, but he continued, “For an estate this size, I would definitely have one.” “I do have an accountant,” she cut in, with frustration. “Furthermore, I have invested a lot of money bringing this mansion up to speed. You can see my investment is great.” “Of course, it would be. The fact of the matter is, Mrs. Kane, a lot of people are in over their heads in property. You still have to pay up, or we take the place. Well, I’ll get busy now. Pay no mind to me.” He walked on, taking notes. “Clairrrrre!” Zo called as soon as she entered the house. “Bring your cell phone!” Two worry-filled months went by and many calls were made to lawyers, before Zoey finally picked one that made her feel confident. And then the letter came with the totals and the due date. “There is no way we can pay this, Mom, even if we sold off some of our treasures, because a lot of them are contracted to museums anyway. I am feeling awfully poor all of a sudden, and insecure.” “Yes, and I did some research, thinking I’d be forced to sell. It’s unlikely that anyone else around here can afford this place. It looks like they are going to get it all; they aren’t just charging for this year. What we have here is a value about equal to a little country. And all the new construction sites for housing developments suddenly popping up on this side of the river, does not help. Value is going up.” Zo put her head in her hands. “Ohhh, oh, oh, oh!” “Yeah, bring out the ice-cream and cake. I need comforting,” sighed Claire. The cell phone rang. “Yes, tonight? You guys have become pretty good to us, haven’t you?! You know, Bob, Mom and I thought we were just going to pig out on ice cream and cake. We found out we are losing this estate and are going to be poor again and we are bummed out.” There was a long pause. “No, that’s okay, I understand. Yeah, okay, bye.” “Well?” Zo ask dryly. “He was appropriately sorry, and he got off the phone fast, saying he remembered he had other business to take care of. Do you want to cry? I do…” “I’ll get the cake and dish the ice cream. You make our tea and we’ll cry together.” A pitter patter began to drum on the window. “Rain again. It seems softer though, dear.” “I thought you said this was going to be a softer rain!” It started to pour. “At least this is not a thunder storm… What was that?” “Thunder,” replied Claire, unmoved and resigned. An hour had gone by when there was a rapping at the door. “People rarely use the doorbell, ever notice that?” Zo asked on the way to the door. She opened it to reveal two wet guys holding a pizza, salad, soft drink, and giant chocolate chip cookies in a plastic container. In a plastic

If there was anything really wrong with Shady Hill, anything that you could put your finger on, it was the fact that the village had no public library – no foxed copies of Pascal, smelling of cabbage; no broken sets of Dostoevski and George Eliot; no Galsworthy, even; no Barrie and no Bennett. This was the chief concern of the Village Council during Marcie’s term. The library partisans were mostly newcomers to the village; the opposition whip was Mrs Selfredge, a member of the Council and a very decorous woman, with blue eyes of astonishing brilliance and inexpressiveness. Mrs Selfredge often spoke of the chosen quietness of their life. ‘We never go out,’ she would say, but in such a way that she seemed to be expressing not some choice but a deep vein of loneliness. She was married to a wealthy man much older than herself, and they had no children; indeed, the most indirect mention of sexual fact brought a deep color to Mrs Selfredge’s face. She took the position that a library belonged in that category of public service that might make Shady Hill attractive to a development. This was not blind prejudice. Carsen Park, the next village, had let a development inside its boundaries, with disastrous results to the people already living there. Their taxes had been doubled, their schools had been ruined. That there was any connection between reading and real estate was disputed by the partisans of the library, until a horrible murder – three murders, in fact – took place in one of the cheese-box houses in the Carsen Park development, and the library project was buried with the victims.

Do you have no big proprietors?” Andrés asked. “Many.” “Then there must be abuses.” “Certainly. There are many abuses.” “But you will do away with them?” “We try to more and more. But there are many abuses still.” “But there are not great estates that must be broken up?” “Yes. But there are those who believe that taxes will break them up.” “How?” Robert Jordan, wiping out the stew bowl with bread, explained how the income tax and inheritance tax worked. “But the big estates remain. Also there are taxes on the land,” he said. “But surely the big proprietors and the rich will make a revolution against such taxes. Such taxes appear to me to be revolutionary. They will revolt against the government when they see that they are threatened, exactly as the fascists have done here,” Primitivo said. “It

Stanley Perlman. She hurried out of the building at One Market Plaza, stepped off the curb, and hailed a cab. It occurred to her, as it always did, that one of these days when she met with him, it would really be for the last time. He always said it was. She had begun to expect him to live forever, despite his protests, and in spite of the realities of time. Her law firm had handled his affairs for more than half a century. She had been his estate and tax attorney for the past three years. At thirty-eight, Sarah had been a partner of the firm for the past two years, and had inherited Stanley as a client when his previous attorney died. Stanley had outlived them all. He was ninety-eight years old. It was hard to believe sometimes. His mind was as sharp as it had ever been, he read voraciously, and he was well aware of every nuance and change in the current tax laws. He was a challenging and entertaining client. Stanley Perlman had been a genius in business all his life. The only thing that had changed over the years was that his body had betrayed him, but never once his mind. He was bedridden now, and had been for nearly seven years. Five nurses attended to him, three regularly in eight-hour shifts, two as relief. He was comfortable, most of the time, and hadn't left his house in years. Sarah had always liked and admired him, although others thought he was irascible and cantankerous. She thought he was a remarkable man. She gave the cabdriver Stanley's Scott Street address. They made their way through the downtown traffic in San Francisco's financial district, and headed west uptown, toward Pacific Heights, where he had lived in the same house for seventy-six years. The sun was shining brightly as they climbed Nob Hill up California Street, and she knew it might be otherwise when they got uptown. The fog often sat heavily on the residential

When the time comes, & I hope it comes soon, to bury this era of moral rot & the defiling of our communal, social, & democratic norms, the perfect epitaph for the gravestone of this age of unreason should be Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley's already infamous quote: "I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing... as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.” Grassley's vision of America, quite frankly, is one I do not recognize. I thought the heart of this great nation was not limited to the ranks of the plutocrats who are whisked through life in chauffeured cars & private jets, whose often inherited riches are passed along to children, many of whom no sacrifice or service is asked. I do not begrudge wealth, but it must come with a humility that money never is completely free of luck. And more importantly, wealth can never be a measure of worth. I have seen the waitress working the overnight shift at a diner to give her children a better life, & yes maybe even take them to a movie once in awhile - and in her, I see America. I have seen the public school teachers spending extra time with students who need help & who get no extra pay for their efforts, & in them I see America. I have seen parents sitting around kitchen tables with stacks of pressing bills & wondering if they can afford a Christmas gift for their children, & in them I see America. I have seen the young diplomat in a distant foreign capital & the young soldier in a battlefield foxhole, & in them I see America. I have seen the brilliant graduates of the best law schools who forgo the riches of a corporate firm for the often thankless slog of a district attorney or public defender's office, & in them I see America. I have seen the librarian reshelving books, the firefighter, police officer, & paramedic in service in trying times, the social worker helping the elderly & infirm, the youth sports coaches, the PTA presidents, & in them I see America. I have seen the immigrants working a cash register at a gas station or trimming hedges in the frost of an early fall morning, or driving a cab through rush hour traffic to make better lives for their families, & in them I see America. I have seen the science students unlocking the mysteries of life late at night in university laboratories for little or no pay, & in them I see America. I have seen the families struggling with a cancer diagnosis, or dementia in a parent or spouse. Amid the struggles of mortality & dignity, in them I see America. These, & so many other Americans, have every bit as much claim to a government working for them as the lobbyists & moneyed classes. And yet, the power brokers in Washington today seem deaf to these voices. It is a national disgrace of historic proportions. And finally, what is so wrong about those who must worry about the cost of a drink with friends, or a date, or a little entertainment, to rephrase Senator Grassley's demeaning phrasings? Those who can't afford not to worry about food, shelter, healthcare, education for their children, & all the other costs of modern life, surely they too deserve to be able to spend some of their “darn pennies” on the simple joys of life. Never mind that almost every reputable economist has called this tax bill a sham of handouts for the rich at the expense of the vast majority of Americans & the future economic health of this nation. Never mind that it is filled with loopholes written by lobbyists. Never mind that the wealthiest already speak with the loudest voices in Washington, & always have. Grassley’s comments open a window to the soul of the current national Republican Party & it it is not pretty. This is not a view of America that I think President Ronald Reagan let alone President Dwight Eisenhower or Teddy Roosevelt would have recognized. This is unadulterated cynicism & a version of top-down class warfare run amok. ~Facebook 12/4/17

Professor Joseph Stiglitz, former Chief Economist of the World Bank, and former Chairman of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers, goes public over the World Bank’s, “Four Step Strategy,” which is designed to enslave nations to the bankers. I summarise this below, 1. Privatisation. This is actually where national leaders are offered 10% commissions to their secret Swiss bank accounts in exchange for them trimming a few billion dollars off the sale price of national assets. Bribery and corruption, pure and simple. 2. Capital Market Liberalization. This is the repealing any laws that taxes money going over its borders. Stiglitz calls this the, “hot money,” cycle. Initially cash comes in from abroad to speculate in real estate and currency, then when the economy in that country starts to look promising, this outside wealth is pulled straight out again, causing the economy to collapse. The nation then requires International Monetary Fund (IMF) help and the IMF provides it under the pretext that they raise interest rates anywhere from 30% to 80%. This happened in Indonesia and Brazil, also in other Asian and Latin American nations. These higher interest rates consequently impoverish a country, demolishing property values, savaging industrial production and draining national treasuries. 3. Market Based Pricing. This is where the prices of food, water and domestic gas are raised which predictably leads to social unrest in the respective nation, now more commonly referred to as, “IMF Riots.” These riots cause the flight of capital and government bankruptcies. This benefits the foreign corporations as the nations remaining assets can be purchased at rock bottom prices. 4. Free Trade. This is where international corporations burst into Asia, Latin America and Africa, whilst at the same time Europe and America barricade their own markets against third world agriculture. They also impose extortionate tariffs which these countries have to pay for branded pharmaceuticals, causing soaring rates in death and disease.

Then, in 1950, Andy became something more than a model prisoner. In 1950, he became a valuable commodity, a murderer who did tax-returns better than H & R Block. He gave gratis estate-planning advice, set up tax-shelters, filled out loan applications (sometimes creatively). I can remember him sitting behind his desk in the library, patiently going over a car-loan agreement paragraph by paragraph with a screwhead who wanted to buy a used DeSoto, telling the guy what was good about the agreement and what was bad about it, explaining to him that it was possible to shop for a loan and not get hit quite so bad, steering him away from the finance companies, which in those days were sometimes little better than legal loan-sharks. When he’d finished, the screwhead started to put out his hand . . . and then drew it back to himself quickly. He’d forgotten for a moment, you see, that he was dealing with a mascot, not a man. Andy kept up on the tax laws and the changes in the stock market, and so his usefulness didn’t end after he’d been in cold storage for awhile, as it might have done. He began to get his library money, his running war with the sisters had ended, and nobody tossed his cell very hard. He was a good nigger.

In the meantime Chancellor Schleicher went about—with an optimism that was myopic, to say the least—trying to establish a stable government. On December 15 he made a fireside broadcast to the nation begging his listeners to forget that he was a general and assuring them that he was a supporter “neither of capitalism nor of socialism” and that to him “concepts such as private economy or planned economy have lost their terrors.” His principal task, he said, was to provide work for the unemployed and get the country back on its economic feet. There would be no tax increase, no more wage cuts. In fact, he was canceling the last cut in wages and relief which Papen had made. Furthermore, he was ending the agricultural quotas which Papen had established for the benefit of the large landowners and instead was launching a scheme to take 800,000 acres from the bankrupt Junker estates in the East and give them to 25,000 peasant families. Also prices of such essentials as coal and meat would be kept down by rigid control. This was a bid for the support of the very masses which he had hitherto opposed or disregarded, and Schleicher followed it up with conversations with the trade unions, to whose leaders he gave the impression that he envisaged a future in which organized labor and the Army would be twin pillars of the nation. But labor was not to be taken in by a man whom it profoundly mistrusted, and it declined its co-operation. The industrialists and the big landowners, on the other hand, rose up in arms against the new Chancellor’s program, which they clamored was nothing less than Bolshevism. The businessmen were aghast at Schleicher’s sudden friendliness to the unions. The owners of large estates were infuriated at his reduction of agricultural protection and livid at the prospect of his breaking up the bankrupt estates in the East. On

How is money created? An example: You buy a house or take out a mortgage on the excess value of your property. You want 200,000 Dollars. The following happens. The bank’s computer adds these virtual numbers - because that is what they are - to your bank account, and then you have to bleed for the next 30 years, WITH INTEREST. The bank attached a fictional number to your name and for 30 years you need to work to pay the money back. The bank didn’t build your house, nor did it pay for the materials. That was done by people like you and me. They too have to pay, because they also have a mortgage. And when you die, your kids will have to pay taxes on your estate. Often, they have to take out a mortgage of their own to do so[74]. Another example of how banks create money out of nothing: You go to the bank to lend 1,000 Dollars. One year later, you have to pay 1,100 Dollars back, including interest. The additional 100 Dollars come from fellow citizens, for instance in the form of wages or profit sharing. In other words, the extra 100 Dollars come from society. This can only happen when the total amount of money in circulation increases. That increase – inflation – is created when the bank creates more money. In other words: “Interest payments are a direct way to create money.” All the money that exists comes from the bank. This remarkable phenomenon has been described as follows by Mr. Robert Hemphill, Credit Manager of the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta: “If all the bank loans were paid, there would not be a dollar in circulation. This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash, or credit. If the banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless situation is almost incredible - but there it is.”[75]

Realty investing is something you can assist to variety your profile more varied. Putting your cost savings into structures and land can provide you expanded your financial investments over even more sectors besides simply bonds and stocks. Continue reading to find out properly to buy investor. When choosing to purchase realty, make it expert by establishing an LLC. This will assist to shield both you personally and the financial investments that you make in the future. It can likewise provide you tax advantages thanks to your company negotiations. Constantly get a great feel of the neighborhood values resemble. Home loans and rental costs in communities that are regional will provide you a home is worth. Be particular you invest adequate time on business as well as discovering about exactly how it works. You need to budget plan your time invested on various other activities in order to make even more cash over the long run. Ditch the poker night or an additional guilty satisfaction so you have even more time to sharpen your investing abilities. Stick with niches you feel comfy handling. You will discover more success by adhering to a specific market sector. Whether you prepare to flip a residence, purchase or buy a rental home repossession, stay with exactly what you understand for success. Get to understand others in genuine estate market. It can be practical to have a couple of buddies who understand about investing in genuine estate. Troubles with lessees could take in a large amount of time. This presumption is harmful in the genuine estate market and any specific home. Your finest bet is to invest in things that supply a favorable money flow right away. Land near water or in the future. If you buy a home with the objective of leasing it out, be cautious of who you let lease it. If they can not get their cash together at this time, they aren't a trusted bet for you. When thinking about a big factor to consider for buying genuine estate, Area is critical. Consider the location you are deciding to purchase and the possible capacity. Make sure you are a great bookkeeper. You will conserve yourself a significant headache later on if you're excellent accounting now. You can find info about city planning information and various other details that could affect genuine estate values in the future. A growing city that's growing is an excellent financial investment. When attempting to get that next offer, never ever over-leverage yourself. You should keep money on reserve in case the unanticipated expenditures. Begin little with simply one home. Start with a single home and discover as you desire to make use of. Realty is a wonderful method to branch out. There are particular guidelines you need to comprehend. Use this short article when you begin to invest into genuine estate in order to end up being effective in it. Continue reading to discover the right means to invest in luxury condos miami financier. When choosing to invest in genuine estate, make it expert by setting up an LLC. Get to understand others in genuine estate market. It can be valuable to have a couple of pals who understand about investing in genuine estate. Use this post when you begin to invest into genuine estate in order to end up being effective in it.

There can be little dispute about purchasing luxury real estate miami investing. If you are one of the latter, this post is meant for you. You need to set up either an LLC or a comparable entity as soon as you think you're going to get into genuine estate investing. This shields you and expertly. It can likewise assist you with specific tax concerns. Constantly look for out exactly what the regional values. Discovering the next-door neighbors are and whether they have or lease can inform you more about a house's value than the monetary statements. Discover individuals included in genuine estate investing and find out from them. There are a lot of individuals interested in genuine estate. Get to understand various other financiers in genuine estate. It pays to have a lot about genuine estate financier buddies. Issues with renters can squander a lot of time. If you envisioning to lease a home, display your prospective renters very carefully. If they cannot get their cash together at this time, they aren't a reputable bet for you. When thinking about exactly how much a home is worth, think about rental values as you identify exactly how much you'll make off of lease. This can permit you a lot of dollars throughout the course of the year from individuals who are remaining in your location. When you're all set and make a substantially bigger gross earnings, you can still offer the house. Do not purchase homes in an area that's bad. A great offer might suggest that it's in a bad location. It might take a longer time than you expected for your first great genuine estate offer. Do not fret; simply bide your time and the best situations. Area is the critical part of realty. Consider the future and the place. If you understand the area, this will be advantageous to you. Since it will be in the location, you will not be stressing about some faraway rental home. If you live close by, you will have much better control of your financial investment. You might discover it simple to cut corners when it comes to accounting, particularly when you initially get begun. You will conserve yourself a lot of headache later on if you begin developing great accounting routines. Do some study on the city's government prior to you invest in genuine estate. Many towns have a main site that can be discovered with an easy search. If you wish to make money from the amazing world of realty investing, why not start today? Now that you're more notified, you can begin investing! Keep this details useful and begin the trip to success. When you think you're going to get into genuine estate investing, you must set up either an LLC or a comparable entity. Get to understand various other financiers in genuine estate. It pays to have a lot about genuine estate financier pals. It might take a longer time than you expected for your first excellent genuine estate offer. If you want to benefit from the incredible world of genuine estate investing, why not get begun today?

owning an income property means that the interest on the mortgage payments is also tax deductible.

Individual Greeks are delightful: funny, warm, smart, and good company. I left two dozen interviews saying to myself, “What great people!” They do not share the sentiment about one another: the hardest thing to do in Greece is to get one Greek to compliment another behind his back. No success of any kind is regarded without suspicion. Everyone is pretty sure everyone is cheating on his taxes, or bribing politicians, or taking bribes, or lying about the value of his real estate. And this total absence of faith in one another is self-reinforcing. The epidemic of lying and cheating and stealing makes any sort of civic life impossible; the collapse of civic life only encourages more lying, cheating, and stealing. Lacking faith in one another, they fall back on themselves and their families.

In the end it’s the tax-deferred 1031 exchange that gets massive use by Millionaire Real Estate Investors. This program in the IRS tax code allows you to sell and buy properties without having to declare capital gains or pay those taxes. It’s a very straightforward procedure, but it takes some planning. First, you need to hire a 1031 Qualified Intermediary before you close on the sale of one of your properties. That person will act as your guide and escrow agent as you move through the sale of one property and the purchase of the next. After the sale of your “relinquished property” you have 45 days to identify the “replacement property” and a total of 180 days to close on that second property. You want to be looking for the replacement property before or during the marketing of the property you are selling. If you find a good opportunity, you can enter into a contract with a right to assign clause if your first property does not sell or with a 1031 clause in the purchase agreement if it does. Many people have the mistaken notion that you are exchanging your property with someone else: You take theirs, and they take yours. In some cases that can be done, but it is neither the purpose nor the requirement of a 1031 exchange. A 1031 exchange is designed for you to “exchange” one property in your portfolio (sell it) and replace it with another one that you wish to buy. It allows you to keep purchasing larger, more expensive properties without having to pay capital gains taxes on the ones you sell. This is a wonderful way to keep your money working for you.

Real-estate inflation is the tax that one portion of society – older, more affluent homeowners and corporate landowners in coastal areas – levies on the rest of society, especially younger, less affluent families,

Our financial, tax, and legal systems are set up to reward property owners

Real estate investors can accelerate their wealth building much faster than with other assets, such as stocks, bonds, and tax-deferred retirement funds.

The government grants tax and legal loopholes to real estate investors to encourage them to do a job that the government can’t.

They do not share the sentiment about one another: the hardest thing to do in Greece is to get one Greek to compliment another behind his back. No success of any kind is regarded without suspicion. Everyone is pretty sure everyone is cheating on his taxes, or bribing politicians, or taking bribes, or lying about the value of his real estate. And this total absence of faith in one another is self-reinforcing. The epidemic of lying and cheating

Everyone’s an equal shareholder. Birth shares are inalienable, and death duties are unavoidable. The estate tax is one hundred per cent. In between, you can buy and sell and earn as much as you like.

Already, data showed that the American dream of rags to riches, the Horatio Alger story, was largely a myth. Economic mobility was extremely limited. The abolition of the estate tax could solidify these changes, creating a new “class” society, based not on ancient nobility as in Europe, but on the bonanza of the Roaring Nineties. The

In the early years, top incomes were derived from capital, and the richest people were what Piketty and Saez call “coupon clippers,” who received most of their incomes from dividends and interest. The fortunes underlying these receipts were eroded over the century by increasingly progressive income and estate taxes. Those who used to live off their (or their ancestors’) fortunes have been replaced at the top by earners, people like CEOs of large firms, Wall Street bankers, and hedge fund managers, who receive their incomes as salaries, bonuses, and stock options. Entrepreneurial

Tax on income from investment in debt mutual fund, real estate and other assets

Loans NRIs can give loans to resident Indians on a repatriable or non-repatriable basis. NRIs can also receive loans from residents. Loan from NRIs in foreign currency or on a repatriable basis A resident Indian can borrow up to US dollars 250,000 from NRI close relatives on a repatriation basis i.e. on repayment, the NRI can credit the funds in an NRE account and take this money back without any restrictions. The NRI should be a close relative of the borrower. Please check ‘Who is your relative’ for details. The amount of loan should be received by an inward remittance or by debit to the NRE/FCNR account. The loan should be a minimum of 1 year and without any interest. The funds cannot be used for agricultural/plantation/real estate business or for relending. Income: As the loan should be interest-free, no income can be generated. Taxability: As there is no income, there is no tax. Loan from NRIs in Indian rupees or on a non-repatriable basis A resident, not being a company incorporated in India, may borrow in rupees from an NRI on a non- repatriation basis. The period of loan should be 3 years or less and the rate of interest should not exceed 2% over the prevailing bank rate at the time of the loan. The loan has to be utilized for meeting the borrower’s personal requirement or for his business purposes. The funds cannot be used for agricultural/plantation/real estate business or for relending or for investment in shares, securities or immovable property. For example, Ms. Isumati has given an unsecured loan to her father’s firm earning 15% interest. If she goes to the UK for further studies and becomes an NRI, while she may continue with the loan, RBI rules would apply. The funds cannot be used for real estate business and if the bank rate is 10%, she cannot be paid more than 12% interest on her loan. Her father would also need to deduct TDS @ 30.9% on the interest. Income: Income from loans given to residents is interest. Taxability: The interest income on loans given is taxable for NRIs. Loans to NRIs NRIs are allowed to borrow from a bank/authorized

In 1818, Jackson spied a real estate opportunity in Florida. The opportunity was created by marauding Indians conducting raids from Spanish Florida. The Monroe administration sent Jackson to Florida to stop the raids. Jackson declared his purpose to “chastise” the Indians, which in his parlance meant to kill them. Although he had been specifically instructed to deal with the Indians and not occupy Spanish land, Jackson entered West Florida, captured Pensacola, appointed a governor there, and started collecting taxes.

It was expected that a proper burgher would leave from a third to a half of his movable property for uses that would benefit the public and his own estate in the next world. Now the state takes over such functions by means of inheritance taxes. The judgment of the state is substituted for that of the decedent, and the merit of voluntary well-doing is lost.

If you fully convert your home to rental property and use it that way for years before selling it, after you do sell you can either take advantage of the lower long-term capital gains rates or do a tax deferred exchange. For tax purposes, you get to deduct depreciation and all of the write-offs during the ownership and you can shelter up to $25,000 in income from active sources subject to income eligibility requirements. (Please

tax laws allow you to offset your earned income by up to $25,000 in passive losses from real estate, as long as your adjusted gross income is below $100,000.

income potential, full ownership, appreciation of equity, and tax deductions.

As Alec Karakatsanis observes in Usual Cruelty: The Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Injustice System, people with race and class privilege are generally shielded from criminal prosecution, even though their crimes often cause far greater harm than the crimes of the poor. The most obvious example is the prosecutorial response to the financial crisis of 2008 and the related scandals: “Employees at banks committed crimes including lying to investigators and regulators, fraudulently portraying junk assets as valuable assets, rate-rigging, bribing foreign officials, submitting false documents, mortgage fraud, fraudulent home foreclosures, financing drug cartels, orchestrating and enabling widespread tax evasion, and violating international sanctions.” The massive criminality caused enormous harm. African Americans lost over half their wealth due to the collapse of real estate markets and the financial crisis. By the end of the crisis, in 2009, median household wealth for all Americans had declined by $27,000, leaving almost 44 million people in poverty. While some banks were eventually prosecuted (and agreed to pay fines that were a small fraction of their profits), the individuals who committed these crimes were typically spared. Despite engaging in forms of criminality that destroyed the lives and wealth of millions, they were not rounded up, dragged away in handcuffs, placed in cages, and then stripped of their basic civil and human rights or shipped to another country. Their mug shots never appeared on the evening news and they never had to wave goodbye to their children in a courtroom, unable to give them a final embrace.

Fred had refused to heed his lawyers’ advice to cede control of his empire to his children before his death in order to minimize estate taxes. That meant that Maryanne, Elizabeth, Donald, and Robert would be responsible for potentially hundreds of millions of dollars of estate taxes. In addition to dozens of buildings, my grandfather had amassed extraordinary sums of cash. His properties carried no debt and brought in millions of dollars every year. The siblings’ solution was to establish All County Building Supply & Maintenance.

By now, there seems to be a consensus among a large majority of economists that low taxes on high earners are not guaranteed to, on their own, bring about economic growth. This was reflected in the response of the IGM Booth panel of top economists to the Trump tax cut of 2017. The tax cut provides deep and durable tax cuts for businesses, including a cut in the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. The bill also includes a new top tax rate of 37 percent for the wealthiest Americans (down from 39.6 percent), raises the threshold for top earners, and eliminates the estate tax. It has much smaller tax cuts for the rest of the population, and most of these are meant to be temporary. To the question “If the US enacts a tax bill similar to those currently moving through the House and Senate—and assuming no other changes in tax or spending policy—US GDP will be substantially higher a decade from now than under the status quo” only one person agreed with the statement and 52 percent either disagreed or strongly disagreed (the rest were uncertain or did not answer).58

Permanent life insurance that builds cash value can be a great tool in this situation. The premiums are paid with after-tax dollars. The policy grows tax deferred, and you can access those cash values before or after retirement on a tax-free basis as long as it is structured properly. Upon your death, the death benefit is paid to your beneficiaries generally income tax free and, if you set it up properly, estate tax free.

Carnegie, in fact, unlike many rich people then and now, believed in a punitive estate tax that would encourage philanthropy: “Of all forms of taxation, this seems the wisest.

It is a fact of history that no king could push his people into war as rapidly and as fluidly as George Bush or Barack Obama. And this cannot be dismissed as a technological issue brought about by progress. It stems directly from the configuration of power structures. Here we must emphasize the difference between a stratified society and the modern egalitarian regime. In the latter, the state has direct authority over each individual or group, and this is true primarily because all have been reduced to one dead level. Access to one member on any single level implies access to all. In the stratified framework, however, the authority of a man at the uppermost level does not imply access to any other level beyond that which happens to be immediately adjacent to his own. He does not subsume command of all that falls below him in the vast hierarchy. He sits on the top rung, indeed, but his arms aren't any longer than yours or mine, and so he can only grasp at the next rung down from his own. The medieval king could command his dukes, but he could not command their knights. He could draw taxes from the peasants who lived on his own estate (which was not much larger than a duke's), but he could not draw taxes from the peasants who lived on his dukes' estates. In this way the monarch had no effective way of exercising direct dominion over anyone but the dukes themselves. Any influence on the peasantry was indirect, as a result of convincing the nobility of the justness of his cause. It was open to them to refuse in a way that no American governor can refuse mobilization of his population for a military engagement.

Think about it. Jeff Bezos, the richest man in America, has an estimated net worth of $110 billion. How many fewer cars, swimming pools, tennis courts, or luxury vacations will Bezos purchase after 2 percent of his wealth is taxed away? The answer is not many. A small, annual tax on a fraction of his net worth isn’t going to crowd out much of his spending. When it comes down to it, he’s more of a saver than a spender. Billionaires save their wealth in the form of financial assets, real estate, fine art, and rare coins. A wealth tax might make the infrastructure bill appear fiscally responsible, but it makes a lousy offset if the government wants to increase spending in an economy that doesn’t have much available slack.

Code Section 1031 lets taxpayers roll the gain from the sale of their old investment property over to their new investment property; therefore, they do not have to pay capital gains tax on the increase at that time. This is one of the tremendous advantages of owning real estate over owning stocks and bonds because there is no comparable code section for stocks and bonds.

Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code, which allows a seller to delay paying taxes on a piece of real estate that is sold for a capital gain through an exchange for a more expensive piece of real estate.

If I make great profits in the stock market, I pay my capital-gains tax on the gain and then reinvest what’s left in real estate, again further securing my asset foundation.

Table of Contents Things About House For Rent Barrie Excitement About House For Rent Barrie The 15 Second Trick For House For Rent Barrie If you're looking to move into a home that's not going to be taken over by an estate agent, then you should seriously consider taking a house for rent to stay. There are many reasons why you might want to rent a home rather than staying in your own. Perhaps you've just bought a house and you're trying to find somewhere to stay before you move in. Maybe you're simply on holiday and need somewhere to stay until you're back at home. Things About House For Rent Barrie There are many things to think about when you are considering renting a house instead of buying one. Before you decide whether or not you want to rent a house, you will need to consider what you'll be doing in the house for the majority of your stay. Will you be living alone, with a friend or partner or as a couple? How long do you want to stay in the house to avoid being tempted to move away once your new home is complete? The main reason why you might want to rent a house instead of buying it is because you can save money in the process. You won't have to spend months paying rent, or put down a deposit, or arrange for an insurance policy or rental repayments to take care of everything in the event that you move out. With the economy currently, people don't like to have to spend money, but they also like to save money. If you live in Barrie, then this will be an ideal place to rent a house to live for most of the year. Although you may have to pay some sort of rent during the summer months, and during the colder months you may have to find some other way to pay the costs involved in staying there. Most people who rent a house often decide to move back into their own homes once the lease on the property is up. However, they often find that moving back in isn't as easy or comfortable as when they first moved into the home. So, they choose to take a house to rent to stay for a few months, until they're back in their own home. Renting a house is also a great way to get a place to work in London. Because London is so popular, there are many people working in various different places all across the city, and they are not all living in one place. A house to rent to stay in is a convenient option for many people, and it allows them to work from home. This way they will be able to continue to work, pay their bills and other expenses at home, but still have access to other activities throughout London. Excitement About House For Rent Barrie When you are thinking about taking a house to rent to live in, there are also a number of benefits for you. First, you won't have to put up with the expense of all the costs that go along with having a property to rent and buying a property. Even if you do want to buy a property you may be able to buy it cheaper. The other benefit to owning a home is that you'll be able to easily get a tax return back on the money you have saved by taking on a house to let in Barrie. Although not all landlords give out tax returns on the money you owe them, it is worth asking. The truth is that more people are choosing to rent out their homes to tenants, and this gives them an opportunity to help themselves to some of that money.

estate tax in our country is a voluntary tax - you only pay if you don't plan

what gets defined as crime, and who gets surveilled and punished, generally has more to do with the politics of race and class than the harm that any particular behavior or activity causes. As Alec Karakatsanis observes in Usual Cruelty: The Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Injustice System, people with race and class privilege are generally shielded from criminal prosecution, even though their crimes often cause far greater harm than the crimes of the poor. The most obvious example is the prosecutorial response to the financial crisis of 2008 and the related scandals: “Employees at banks committed crimes including lying to investigators and regulators, fraudulently portraying junk assets as valuable assets, rate-rigging, bribing foreign officials, submitting false documents, mortgage fraud, fraudulent home foreclosures, financing drug cartels, orchestrating and enabling widespread tax evasion, and violating international sanctions.” The massive criminality caused enormous harm. African Americans lost over half their wealth due to the collapse of real estate markets and the financial crisis. By the end of the crisis, in 2009, median household wealth for all Americans had declined by $27,000, leaving almost 44 million people in poverty. While some banks were eventually prosecuted (and agreed to pay fines that were a small fraction of their profits), the individuals who committed these crimes were typically spared. Despite engaging in forms of criminality that destroyed the lives and wealth of millions, they were not rounded up, dragged away in handcuffs, placed in cages, and then stripped of their basic civil and human rights or shipped to another country. Their mug shots never appeared on the evening news and they never had to wave goodbye to their children in a courtroom, unable to give them a final embrace.

Provide documents that show your investment experience and your financial readiness. When I submit my letter of intent (LOI) with my initial offer on a property, I also send a pre-approval letter from my lender, a brief bio, a schedule of my real estate holdings (Buyer’s Resume), references from brokers I have closed deals with, a current savings account statement and the first two pages of my most recent tax returns (with all confidential information blacked out, of course). If you are not in a position to submit all of this information, just provide what you can. The idea is to speak to your strengths as a buyer. Try to at least submit a pre-approval letter from your lender, as this will go a long way towards setting yourself apart from the average buyer.

1031” is jargon for Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code which allows a seller to delay paying taxes on a piece of real estate that is sold for a capital gain through an exchange for a more expensive piece of real estate. Real estate is one investment vehicle that has a great tax advantage. As long as you keep trading up in value, you will not be taxed on the gains until you liquidate. People who don’t take advantage of these legal tax savings are missing a great opportunity to build their asset columns.

To me, the long-term tax advantages and appreciation make real estate the best investment.

6. Buy something of equal or greater value. To avoid paying any tax at the time of the exchange, you have to buy property of equal or greater value and reinvest all of the cash.

The Book on Tax Strategies for the Savvy Real Estate Investor.

generation-skipping tax. As you move into multigenerational wealth, you can plan around the estate tax regime, sometimes avoiding as much as a 50 percent tax hit that might surface as you transfer wealth from one generation to the next. The marital deduction is

If your company has any credible strategy for providing equity-based returns with muted volatility, you have not just a value proposition, but one of the most important value propositions of our time.... What's the concept in an operating real estate REIT? Operating real estate (as distinct from net leases or mortgages, which are other financing concepts) has the potential to produce equity-like long-term returns, but isan extremely powerful diversifier, in that real estate correlates positively with inflation while stocks and bonds correlate negatively with it. Inflation, with it attendant higher interest rates, chokes off new supply of real estate: new expensive to build, to expensive to finance at prevailing market rents. When new supply dwindles, normal growth absorbs the available space and puts upward pressure on rents, increasing cash flows to the owners... until rents get to a point where new construction pencils out again. (Meanwhile, in an inflation/interest rate flareup of any consequence, stocks and bonds are usually getting hit, and sometimes hit hard.) This, to me, is a trifecta of a conceptual value proposition: (a) the potential for the equity-like long-term returns investors need, (b) historically correlated positively with inflation, unlike all financial assets, and (c) just when you think this story can't get better, with 90% of available income paid out currently to income-starved investors.... What's the concept for variable life insurance? It's certainly the least expensive long-term form of life insurance, in that, as the investment portion grows, it extinguishes the insurance company's exposure. (As Ben Baldwin gnomically and brilliantly observes, 'All insurance is term insurance.') It may also be, in a given situation, the cheapest way of funding an estate tax liability, leaving the maximum legacy to one's heirs. And, of course, if the ownership is vested in an insurance trust, one may (under current law at this writing) be bequeathing wealth without income or estate taxation. As long as there is an estate tax - any estate tax - there will be a financial planning issue in the life of every affluent household/family: how do you want the heirs to pay it? And it seems likely that, conceptually, VUL will always be an answer.... Small cap equities? The concept is, clearly, higher returns with - and precisely because of - their higher volatility.

bitcoin and issued guidance on its tax treatment with IRS Notice 2014-21. Without detailing the fine print of the ruling,27 the basic message was that although bitcoin may be called a virtual currency, for tax purposes the IRS would treat it as property. For example, stocks, bonds, and real estate are also considered property.

Your CPA can help you: • Create a property budget • Deal with estimated tax payments • Set up and manage retirement accounts • Analyze complicated financing options • Handle all the tax returns

A thorough flip budget includes: • Investment property purchase price and settlement costs • Loan costs (such as application fees, points, and lifetime interest) • Repair and renovation costs (based on estimates from experienced contractors) • Inspection fees • Staging costs • Selling costs (including real estate agent commission and other closing costs) • Professional fees • Insurance • Property and school taxes • Utilities • Income tax provisions

Having rolled back the landmark economic reforms of the sixties (the war on poverty) and those of the thirties (labor law, agricultural price supports, banking regulation), its leaders now turn their guns on the accomplishments of the earliest years of progressivism (Woodrow Wilson’s estate tax; Theodore Roosevelt’s antitrust measures). With a little more effort, the backlash may well repeal the entire twentieth century.4

Here, after all, is a rebellion against “the establishment” that has wound up cutting the tax on inherited estates. Here is a movement whose response to the power structure is to make the rich even richer; whose answer to the inexorable degradation of working-class life is to lash out angrily at labor unions and liberal workplace-safety programs; whose solution to the rise of ignorance in America is to pull the rug out from under public education.

Virtually all brokerage firms offer individual retirement accounts (IRAs). There are two main types: traditional and Roth. The main difference between them is tax treatment. Traditional IRAs give you a tax deduction now, and tax-deferred growth for the money in the account; you pay taxes only when you begin to withdraw money. Roth IRAs give you no tax deduction now, but all of the money in the account grows tax-free as long as you don’t take it out early (the after-tax money you put in you can still access penalty-free if you need to).

For example, let’s say you bought a rental house five years ago for $300,000 and rented it for three years. When your tenant moved out, you and your spouse moved in and stayed there for two years. You just sold the house for $400,000, a $100,000 capital gain. You can exclude two-fifths of that gain ($40,000) from taxes.

If you owned the house for one year or less, gains get taxed at ordinary rates (which range as high as 37 percent). If you’ve held the asset for more than a year, capital gains rates kick in (0 percent, 15 percent, or 20 percent depending on your overall income level).

Unlike the house you live in, practically every expense attached to your rental property counts as a deductible business expense for tax purposes. Expenses to deduct include: • Mortgage interest • Property taxes • Insurance • Homeowners association dues • Advertising (to fill a vacancy) • Utilities • Repairs and maintenance • Pest control • Landscaping • Trash pickup • Depreciation What doesn’t count as an expense? Any major repairs or renovations you perform count as capital expenditures that get added to the cost basis of the property, effectively reducing your taxable income when you eventually sell.

The TCJA created a tax treasure for pass-through business owners, such as landlords set up as sole proprietorships, LLCs, and partnerships. Any profits earned through the rental properties get “passed through” to your personal income tax return. If your rental properties qualify as a business for tax purposes—and they almost always do when you actively participate in the business—the new tax law lets you deduct 20 percent of your net rental income from your taxable income. That can translate into huge tax savings, freeing up more money so you can beef up your investments or pay down some debt.

When your asset counts as an investment, it’s not subject to self-employment (Medicare and Social Security) taxes of 15.3 percent, which comes on top of ordinary income taxes.

flipping business counts as a business for tax purposes (even if you’re just doing it as a side gig). All of your profits will be taxed at ordinary rates and be subject to self-employment taxes.

Many real estate investing clubs assign roles to members based on their personal background and abilities. Those responsibilities could include: • Keeping club records • Bookkeeping and taxes • Property maintenance • Tenant management • Member communications • Scheduling meetings • Representing the club at closings • Researching potential investments By keeping these jobs “in-house,” the club can direct more funds toward building its real estate portfolio or increasing equity.

There’s a special tax provision called Section 179 that lets business owners deduct 100 percent of the cost of personal property (such as desks and computers) in the year it was bought instead of having to depreciate it over time. In the past, rental property owners weren’t allowed to use this provision for personal property (such as appliances, carpets, and furniture) in their rental units. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) removed that restriction, and now landlords can take full advantage of Section 179 deductions, up to a total of $1 million (but the deduction can’t create a net loss).

Whenever you sell a capital asset for a gain or loss, that sale gets reported on Schedule D. The gains and losses are sorted based on timing: short-term for assets held for one year or less and long-term for assets held longer than one year. That timing matters because gains on short-term holdings are taxed at ordinary rates rather than the more favorable capital gains tax rates (0 percent, 15 percent, or 20 percent depending on your income). Capital gains can be used to offset capital losses, and you only have to pay tax on your overall net capital gains. If you end up with a net capital loss, you can deduct up to $3,000 of it against your other income; the rest gets carried forward to the next year.

As an investor, you pay lower capital gains taxes on any property sale profits. As a dealer, you pay higher ordinary income tax rates plus self-employment taxes (Social Security and Medicare). If you do get stuck in this dealer category, you’ll probably be eligible for the 20 percent deduction, so check with your tax preparer.

Landlords need to keep track of ongoing rental income and expenses along with anything that changes the cost basis of their property. The easiest way to do that: QuickBooks. It’s simple to set up and use, and provides all the information your accountant (or your tax software) will need at the end of the year.

Depreciation gets special IRS attention, and requires Form 4562. To fill out this form (whether you’re doing it with DIY software or providing info to your accountant), you’ll need to know the basis of your rental property. The basis for depreciation is different than the overall basis because land does not get depreciated, and may change over time if you make improvements to the property. To get started you’ll need to know: • The original purchase price of the property • The list of closing costs (most closing costs get added to the basis) • Land value, which you can find on the most recent property tax assessment paperwork • Additions or improvements you made that will add value for more than one year (think replaced roof, not repainted rooms) • The date the property was “placed in service,” meaning made available for rent The

If the company meets all of the qualifications for a REIT, it enjoys special tax status: it doesn’t have to pay any taxes at the company level, which means more cash and higher returns for shareholders. (This is in contrast to the double-taxation issues of corporate stocks, where the corporation has to pay taxes on its income before distributing dividends to shareholders, and then the shareholders have to pay taxes on the dividends they receive, resulting in the same money being taxed twice.)

When you’re ready to sell your rental property, you may be in for a very large windfall. That could produce a substantial tax bill, unless you take some steps to reduce that tax burden. There are three main ways to do that with rental properties: • Sell off some losing assets (like stocks that have plummeted) to offset the gain • Structure a special deal called a 1031 exchange • Turn the property into your primary residence for a couple of years before you sell

What would make the IRS consider you a dealer instead of an investor? • You’ve flipped multiple homes during the year. • Most of your work time is spent on flipping homes. • A large percentage of your income is earned flipping houses. • Your house-flipping business is active. You may have noticed that those factors are vague; that’s not an accident. The IRS hasn’t published specific guidelines, so it’s possible to fight dealer classification (especially if you have an experienced tax accountant). Remember, under the current tax law dealers may get to use the 20 percent deduction, which could result in a lower tax bill.

Congress went beyond merely enacting an income tax law and repealed Article IV of the Bill of Rights, by empowering the tax collector to do the very things from which that article says we were to be secure. It opened up our homes, our papers and our effects to the prying eyes of government agents and set the stage for searches of our books and vaults and for inquiries into our private affairs whenever the tax men might decide, even though there might not be any justification beyond mere cynical suspicion.      “The income tax is bad because it has robbed you and me of the guarantee of privacy and the respect for our property that were given to us in Article IV of the Bill of Rights. This invasion is absolute and complete as far as the amount of tax that can be assessed is concerned. Please remember that under the Sixteenth Amendment, Congress can take 100 percent of our income anytime it wants to. As a matter of fact, right now it is imposing a tax as high as 91 percent. This is downright confiscation and cannot be defended on any other grounds.      “The income tax is bad because it was conceived in class hatred, is an instrument of vengeance and plays right into the hands of the communists. It employs the vicious communist principle of taking from each according to his accumulation of the fruits of his labor and giving to others according to their needs, regardless of whether those needs are the result of indolence or lack of pride, self-respect, personal dignity or other attributes of men.      “The income tax is fulfilling the Marxist prophecy that the surest way to destroy a capitalist society is by steeply graduated taxes on income and heavy levies upon the estates of people when they die.      “As matters now stand, if our children make the most of their capabilities and training, they will have to give most of it to the tax collector and so become slaves of the government. People cannot pull themselves up by the bootstraps anymore because the tax collector gets the boots and the straps as well.      “The income tax is bad because it is oppressive to all and discriminates particularly against those people who prove themselves most adept at keeping the wheels of business turning and creating maximum employment and a high standard of living for their fellow men.      “I believe that a better way to raise revenue not only can be found but must be found because I am convinced that the present system is leading us right back to the very tyranny from which those, who established this land of freedom, risked their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to forever free themselves….” T. Coleman Andrews Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 1953–1955