Insider Tax Tips for Real Estate Investors (#001)

Amanda Han, a tax expert from Keystone CPA. walks us through various tax deductions you can take when you invest in real estate. Amanda calls herself a “CPA by day and real estate investor by night” as her day job is running Keystone CPA, an accounting firm specializing in tax-saving strategies for real estate investors.  When working with clients, Amanda often finds people missing out on opportunities to deduct expenses that are not precisely real estate but related to their company car expenses, office supplies, home office expenses, and books related to their company are often missed. “You are in the business of real estate investing; from that perspective, any expense that you’re incurring that is reasonable for real estate could be a legitimate deduction.”

Her goal is to use real estate investing as a way to significantly reduce taxes for her clients. Many of her personal assets are long term holds, although she has many clients who are involved in flipping and wholesale selling.

Amanda is a third-generation real estate investor. Although her parents and grandparents were real estate investors, Amanda came into real estate investing via her CPA degree. After graduation, she was hired by a real estate firm and quickly realized the tax savings individuals would see when investing in real estate.

Listen in to find out what types of deductions you can take based on your investor status, how you can determine what you can deduct your write-offs against, what will raise the IRA red audit flag, and how you can legitimately claim your home office on your taxes. Learn the criteria to claim home office space on your taxes, common misnomers people make and the types of tax credits you can miss, and how depreciation works on your real estate tax return.