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.
The total of all depreciation taken is the amount of gain that is subject to depreciation recapture tax. The federal tax rate for depreciation recapture is 25%.
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.
The depreciation deduction lowers your tax liability for each tax year you own the investment property. It's a tax write off. But when you sell the property, you'll owe depreciation recapture tax. You'll owe the lesser of your current tax bracket or 25% plus state income tax on any deprecation you claimed.
Moving Back In to Save on Taxes
Moving back into your rental to claim the primary residence gain exclusion does not allow you to exclude your depreciation recapture, so you might still owe a hefty tax bill after moving back, depending on how much depreciation was deducted (IRS, 2023).
Depreciation recapture is calculated by subtracting the adjusted cost basis from the sale price. The adjusted cost basis is the original price paid to acquire the asset minus any allowed or allowable depreciation expense incurred.
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.
When selling the rental property, the investor will subtract the adjusted cost basis from the sale price to determine the capital gain. If the property sells for $350,000, the capital gain would be $350,000 (sale price) – $280,000 (adjusted cost basis) = $70,000. This $70,000 is the capital gain for tax purposes.
This means that these four types of 19-year (or 18- or 15-year) ACRS real property and low-income housing that have specifically defined as subject to recapture under Section 1250, and that all other ACRS real property is subject to recapture under Section 1245.
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.
Then you'll pay capital gains tax on the remainder, assuming you gained money on the sale. However, if you took a depreciation deduction on the asset, you'll have to “recapture” the depreciation and pay taxes on it at ordinary income tax rates. If you lost money, you can take a capital loss deduction.
Net capital gains from selling collectibles (such as coins or art) are taxed at a maximum 28% rate. The portion of any unrecaptured section 1250 gain from selling section 1250 real property is taxed at a maximum 25% rate.
By convention, most U.S. residential rental property is typically depreciated at a rate of 3.636% each year for 27.5 years.
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.
IRS Code Section 1250 states that depreciation must be recaptured if it is allowable for the property. So, even if you don't claim depreciation for the years you owned the property, you'll still have to pay tax on the gain when you decide to sell.
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.
However, when the time comes to sell, the IRS requires real estate investors to recapture any depreciation expense taken and pay tax. Fortunately, there are ways an investor may be able to defer or even completely eliminate paying depreciation recapture tax.
Depreciation stops either when the client has fully recovered their cost or other basis, or when the property is no longer being used to generate income — whichever happens first.
You could then determine the asset's depreciation recapture value by subtracting the adjusted cost basis from the asset's sale price. If you bought equipment for $30,000 and the IRS assigned you a 15% deduction rate with a deduction period of four years, your cost basis is $30,000.
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.
If you depreciated nonresidential real property which was placed in service before 1987 and you depreciated the property placed in service using just straight-line depreciation, there would be no Section 1250 depreciation recapture.