You might be able to minimize the tax hit from depreciation recapture. Potential strategies include purchasing replacement property in a Section 1031 exchange, timing the sale of business property to when you're in a lower tax bracket, and investing in a Qualified Opportunity Fund.
Depreciation recapture tax is based on your capital gains from a rental property sale, subtracting the home's depreciated value from its sale value. If your rental property was your primary residence for a qualifying period, you could avoid depreciation taxes with a Section 121 exclusion.
Sections 1245 and 1250 were enacted to close the loophole that resulted from allowing depreciation deductions on assets to offset ordinary income while taxing gain from the sale of these depreciated assets as capital gains.
How Can Individuals Avoid Depreciation Recapture? Depreciation recapture can be costly when selling something like real estate. Other than selling the property for less, which isn't a favorable option, ways around it could include using the IRS Section 121 exclusion or passing the property to your heirs.
Depreciation recapture is taxed at the taxpayer's nominal income tax rate up to a maximum of 25 percent. There are two main ways investors can offset depreciation recapture. The first involves capital losses. When calculating your income taxes, any capital losses will reduce your unrecaptured depreciation gains.
Some investors may be tempted to skip claiming depreciation to avoid the risk of depreciation recapture tax, but this generally won't succeed. The IRS assumes that you have taken a depreciation deduction. You will owe 25 percent of what you could have deducted as a “depreciation recapture” when you sell the property.
The tax rate for the depreciation recapture is contingent upon whether an asset is a section 1245 or 1250 asset. When section 1250 property is sold, gain up to the amount of depreciation claimed is generally taxed at a maximum rate of 25 percent.
Under section 121 of the Internal Revenue Code, you may be able to exclude much of the gain from the sale of your main home that you also used for business or to produce rental income, if you meet the ownership and use tests.
If those fees cost you $300, you'd subtract that from the sale price. This value would be your net proceeds. You'd then subtract $12,000 from that value to earn a realized gain of $1,500. However, if there was a loss at the point of the depreciated asset's sale, you wouldn't be able to recapture a depreciation.
Depreciation expense taken by a real estate investor is recaptured when the property is sold. Depreciation recapture is taxed at an investor's ordinary income tax rate, up to a maximum of 25%. Remaining profits from the sale of a rental property are taxed at the capital gains tax rate of 0%, 15%, or 20%.
Use a 1031 Exchange to Defer Capital Gains
It's a popular way to defer capital gains taxes when selling a rental home or even a business. Often referred to as a “like-kind” exchange, this tax deferment strategy is defined in Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code.
To avoid recapture of depreciation deductions on the home office, taxpayers do not claim depreciation. The depreciation allowed is the amount you claimed on your tax return. The depreciation allowable is the amount you should have claimed on your tax return.
Investors can defer depreciation recapture by engaging in a 1031 property exchange, also called a like kind exchange. The specific rules of a 1031 Exchange are outlined in section 1031 of the internal revenue code, but they can be complex.
The short answer is that depreciation on a rental property doesn't need to be paid back in a literal sense. Because depreciation is considered a non-cash expense, it doesn't involve any actual expenses out-of-pocket.
Depreciation is a tax strategy which allows you to realize the expense of the property and use those expense to offset income from the property, thus reducing the owner's tax liability. However, when you sell a property, you have to recapture the depreciation that was previously taken as a tax benefit.
In general, to qualify for the Section 121 exclusion, you must meet both the ownership test and the use test. You're eligible for the exclusion if you have owned and used your home as your main home for a period aggregating at least two years out of the five years prior to its date of sale.
You have a rental loss if your rental expenses are more than your gross rental income. If you incur the expenses to earn income, you can deduct your rental loss against your other sources of income.
Sale of your principal residence. We conform to the IRS rules and allow you to exclude, up to a certain amount, the gain you make on the sale of your home. You may take an exclusion if you owned and used the home for at least 2 out of 5 years. In addition, you may only have one home at a time.
If the investor's property has been depreciated over many years, the additional depreciation — the part subject to “recapture” — may be relatively small. As a result, a significant portion of the gain due to depreciation may be treated as a long-term capital gain that can be offset with capital losses.
To calculate a property's depreciation recapture value, subtract the adjusted cost basis from the original cost basis. The resulting figure is the amount the IRS will tax you to recapture depreciation. If the sale of the property results in a net loss, the IRS will not recapture the depreciation.
Form 3115 will have to be filed, with the entire amount of incorrect or overlooked depreciation deducted in full in the year of correction via Form 3115. The total depreciation adjustment is called a Section 481(a) adjustment, which, if negative may be deducted in full in the year of change.
If you own a rental property, the federal government allows you to claim the depreciation of the property every year for 27.5 years. If you use the property for business or farming for more than 1 year, you can deduct the depreciation on your tax return over a longer period.
The downside of depreciation is depreciation recapture, which rears its claws upon sale of a depreciated asset. Depreciation recapture is the portion of your gain attributable to the depreciation you took on your property during prior years of ownership, also known as accumulated depreciation.