If you signed a contract before January 19, 2025 on a building that still is not finished, your bonus depreciation is on the old phase-down schedule from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and the election had nothing to do with it. In this illustration, not a particular client,…
Democrats won Congress, and if you own rental or commercial property you have probably asked whether your bonus depreciation is gone. It is not, on your 2026 return or on anything you buy next year under the law as written today. The second half of the answer is the part…
Democrats won Congress. Your 100% bonus depreciation didn't change. Three depreciation deadlines did not care who won, and one of them lands in 2026. In this solo news episode, David Wiener, Mr. Cash Flow, sorts every post-election tax headline into three buckets (law, proposal, or needs a signature) and walks…
A charitable remainder trust isn't for most people, and here is who it tends to fit. You own property worth a lot more than you paid. It's free of debt or close to it. You'd sell in the next year or two anyway. You want income for life or a…
Starting in 2026, itemized charitable deductions only count above a floor of half of one percent of your AGI. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act added the floor. With an AGI of $400,000, the first $2,000 of giving produces no deduction. For a large one-time gift it's a rounding error.…
Inside a charitable remainder trust, the depreciation you took on your rental doesn't disappear. The trust sells your building and owes nothing, but it tracks the gain by class. As it pays you, the depreciation gain taxed at up to 25 percent comes out first, then the gain taxed at…
One charitable remainder annuity trust pitch promises the gain is never taxed, and the IRS treats it as an abusive tax shelter. The pitch: put appreciated property in a CRAT, have the trust buy an annuity with the sale proceeds, and call the payments a tax-free return of the annuity's…
Giving appreciated stock to charity right before a sale can backfire, and the Hoensheid Tax Court case shows how. A business owner gave about $3 million of company shares to a donor advised fund just before the company sold. The court found the sale was virtually certain by then and…
If you give away a building that had a cost segregation study, your charitable deduction shrinks. Section 170(e) cuts the deduction by the depreciation recapture that would have been ordinary income if you had sold. The same depreciation can't be deducted twice. A plain rental that never had a study…
A charitable remainder trust lets you sell an appreciated building with no tax due the day it closes. Every dollar gets reinvested and you collect a check from it for the rest of your life. The trade: when you are gone, what is left goes to a charity you picked,…
The contract language that decides your R&D tax credit usually isn't in the proposal or the work order. It's in the master service agreement behind them. David Wiener explains that the regulations count all agreements, including standard terms and conditions and the fine print on the back of a purchase…
A charitable remainder trust lets you sell an appreciated building with no tax due at closing, reinvest every dollar, and collect income for life. The trade: what is left goes to a charity you pick, not your kids, and the tax does not disappear. It reaches you a slice at…
To keep the R&D tax credit on client work, a firm doesn't need exclusive rights or a patent. A non-exclusive right to use what it learned can be enough. David Wiener cites the Federal Circuit's 2000 decision involving Lockheed Martin, which held that the right to use research results, even…
Failing the R&D tax credit risk test doesn't automatically wipe out a project, as long as the firm kept its rights in the research. David Wiener explains that the research is treated as funded only to the extent of the payments the firm is entitled to. In his round-number illustration,…
On an hourly contract, the client's money often pays for research that fails, and that can decide who owns the R&D tax credit. David Wiener walks through a made-up engineering firm designing a foundation for a difficult site. The first two approaches fail and the third works. Under an hourly…
There's a contract setup where neither the firm doing the research nor the client paying for it can claim the R&D tax credit. David Wiener explains the combination: the firm keeps no rights in the research, and it only gets paid if the research succeeds. The client didn't carry the…
How a software company can lose the R&D tax credit on one client project and keep it in play on another. David Wiener walks through a made-up 20-person software shop. Project one runs under a master agreement that assigns all work product, inventions and know-how to the client, so the…
One clause in a client contract can cost an engineering firm the R&D tax credit on a whole project. David Wiener reads a work product paragraph that hands all drawings, calculations, methods and know-how to the client. In his illustration, a firm spends four months beating a bad soil site,…
Getting paid by a client won't cost you the R&D tax credit. Your contract can. Two tests decide whose credit it is when a client pays for the work. In part two of a four-part solo series on the research and development tax credit, David Wiener, Mr. Cash Flow, walks…
Rental property depreciation is a paper expense: a real deduction with no check written that year. David Wiener explains how depreciation sits on top of mortgage interest, taxes, insurance and repairs, and why that lets a rental put cash in your pocket while showing a very small profit or even…
Short-term rental depreciation may run on 39 years instead of 27.5, depending on the average stay. David Wiener explains that the tax code's definition of a dwelling unit leaves out units used on a transient basis. Many tax professionals treat a short-term rental with an average stay of 30 days…
On a rental, mortgage interest is deductible but principal isn't, and depreciation is how the building's cost gets deducted. David Wiener clears up a common mix-up. The loan doesn't change your basis: in his illustration, a $400,000 rental bought with $80,000 down depreciates the building portion of the full $400,000,…
Depreciation on a rental that already shows a loss isn't wasted, because passive losses carry forward. David Wiener explains that for owners whose main job isn't real estate, rental losses are generally passive. They can't offset a paycheck this year, but they carry forward, and the ones still waiting generally…
When does depreciation start on a rental? On the placed in service date, not the closing date. David Wiener explains that a rental is placed in service when it's ready and available for rent, whether or not it's rented. In his illustration, a February closing with a two-month rehab means…
