Some Facts About Cost Segregation

By Christa Jarvis


When it comes to taxation, there are a lot of rules and regulation under the law that one would have to follow. Of course this does not mean that there are no loopholes that one can make use of in order to lessen taxes under the law legally. If one is an owner of a building, there is one concept known as cost segregation that he can use in order to significantly lessen taxes.

Now in a nutshell, it is the process of segregating personal property assets that are considered real property assets from personal assets. This is a requirement that is done for tax reporting purposes. This is usually done by expert taxation accountants who are good in handling property assets.

Now many people would ask what exactly will a taxation expert do in order to handle the process. Now basically, the main purpose of this practice is to make sure that the depreciation of the property is accelerated. This can actually decrease the amount of tax that needs to be paid.

Now when one would talk about personal property assets, this would include the land improvements, construction costs, and the building itself. Of course the experts would have to identify the costs that have to do with construction. From there, these items can actually be depreciated in the books for tax purposes.

Now so that one will be able to have an idea of how this is done, the building costs can actually be depreciated up to over a 39 year period. There are other costs such as utilities as well as the other land improvements that can be depreciated up to over five and even fifteen years. Of course there are still more costs that can be considered in here although it is up to the expert to determine what these are.

Now before the expert would go through this process, he will first be working hand in hand with the engineer. He would first have to go through the blueprints of the building and will have the engineer identify all things that had to be done to the building. From there, the expert will be segregating these costs and will start going over what the things are that can be depreciated over a time period.

He will have to be performing an engineering study on the components of the building which means that he would at least have to have some experience when dealing with buildings. First, he will have to be dealing with the walls, floors, ceilings, and everything else that was added to these parts. He would then also have to deal with the utilities that were added like water, electricity and telecommunications.

Now the last thing to do would be to analyze all the data that was collected in this building and create a tax report. Now if one would do this, then his taxes will definitely be lessened because of depreciation. Now one of the benefits that he will derive from this aside from lower taxes would be the opportunity for him to discover more real estate liabilities.




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