Single family · small multifamily · short-term rentals · portfolios
Passive activity rules, grouping elections, real estate professional status and cost segregation timing — the four things that decide whether your paper losses do anything at all.
These come up in nearly every first conversation. Here is our honest answer to each.
Suspended losses sitting on a return year after year are the most common thing we find. Sometimes an election fixes it, sometimes a change in how the properties are grouped does, and sometimes nothing does — but you should at least be told which of the three you are in.
It is claimed far more often than it is qualified for, and it is the single fastest way to attract a question you cannot answer. We test it properly against your hours and your other work, and we will tell you if the honest answer is no.
It depends on the basis, your holding period and whether you can use the loss at all — and if you cannot use the loss, the study is money spent to accelerate a benefit you never receive. We work that out before you commission anything.
A list you can hand to your partner, your CFO or your spouse without translating it first.
We do not sell property, source deals, arrange finance or give investment advice on what to buy. We do not act as your property manager. And we will not claim a status on your return that we do not believe you qualify for.
What we put in writing
The tax planning fee is 40% of the tax actually saved, billed by ARPP LLC and paid out of money that was otherwise going to the Treasury. If the saving does not happen, there is nothing to pay. Tax return preparation is billed separately by Barr Advanced Tax Solutions under its own fee schedule.
For clients with $500,000 or more of income, we guarantee to identify at least $10,000 in tax reduction beyond what your current CPA, EA or tax attorney has already found. If we do not, Barr Advanced Tax Solutions prepares your individual federal returns at no charge for the next three years — a stated value of up to $22,500. Eligibility conditions apply and are published in full on our Terms & Guarantees page.
We do not use anything we would not want to explain to an examiner. Each position we take rests on the Internal Revenue Code, the regulations, or settled authority — not on an aggressive reading of a grey area and a hope that nobody looks.
Should any planning we put in place come under scrutiny, we stand behind it and defend the position at no cost to you, for as long as that position is open. You are not handed a strategy and then left alone with it.
Free tool · nothing to sign up for
Before you commission a cost segregation study, answer four questions. A study that accelerates a loss you are not allowed to use is money spent for nothing.
Your answer will appear here. Nothing is sent to us and nothing is stored.
Nothing you type here leaves your browser. There is no email box, no sign-up and no tracking on this tool — the answer is worked out on your own machine and we never see it. Based on the passive activity rules in IRC §469, including the $25,000 special allowance that phases out between $100,000 and $150,000 of modified adjusted gross income. This is a guide to whether the conversation is worth having, not advice on your return.
Send us last year's return. Within ten business days we send back one page telling you what we found — and if we find nothing, we will say so plainly. No charge, no obligation, no card.
The three tests to run before you commission a study, the situation where a study actively wastes money, and how to work out your own number in about ten minutes.
One email, the document attached, and nothing else unless you ask. You can tell us to stop at any time.
Quoted on the number of properties and whether entities are involved. A single rental on a Schedule E is a modest job and is priced like one.
Always included: a review of the depreciation schedule you arrive with, a written note of any suspended losses we find, and the passive activity position stated in plain English.
Cost segregation studies are carried out by a specialist firm and billed by them. We do not mark them up.