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Landlords should have to pay income tax on their rental properties regardless of whether they're rented out or not. (gothamist.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.crimedad.work/post/12162

Why? Because apparently they need some more incentive to keep units occupied. Also, even though a property might be vacant, there's still imputed rental income there. Its owner is just receiving it in the form of enjoying the unit for himself instead of receiving an actual rent check from a tenant. That imputed rent ought to be taxed like any other income.

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[–] Zink 15 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Many landlords don’t even pay taxes on the money they DO make.

They can depreciate a property to offset their income, even though the property is going up in value. The catch is that they have to pay taxes on more of the money they get from selling the property. But if they don’t sell, potentially no taxes for decades. And if they leave it to their kids in their will, no taxes there either and the kid’s cost basis in the property is the market value at the time they received it. So they can start the depreciation all over again.

This is how my non-expert self understands it anyway. It’s part of what draws some people into real estate.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Once the property is fully depreciated, the trick is to do a 1031 exchange to buy a new one, and then you can depreciate the new one.

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