Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Knowing More 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 for those who do not know what this is, this is basically the separation of real property assets from personal assets. Now from there, the property assets are evaluated for certain costs that can be depreciated. From there the accountant will put these costs in the reports.

So knowing this, many would still ask what the process of this practice. Of course as mentioned earlier, the main goal is to lower taxes by accelerating the depreciation of the property costs. By doing this, one can actually lower the taxes he has to pay.

Now property costs would mean the improvements that are done on to the land, the costs of construction, and of course the additional decorations and such. Now the thing that the experts would do would be to first determine the costs. When they have done this, then they will recording this in the books of the owner.

Just to give one an idea of what can be depreciated, basically building costs can be depreciated over a 27.5 or a 39 year period. Now other costs like exterior improvements and adding of utilities and decorations can be depreciated over five, seven, or fifteen years. These are just some costs that can have accelerated depreciation but there are still more that one can be able to identify if he is an expert.

Now one of the things that the expert would be doing would be to work together with the engineer of the building. Now the first step that he would have to do would be to go over the overall blueprints of the building to get a clearer picture of how the building was built. Now first, the expert will be going over things that can possibly be depreciated over a year and will be bundling together all of these costs.

Now it is crucial that he study the details and the components of the building. Of course this would include the walls, the flooring, the ceiling, and all of the additions that were made to be a part of this building. Now another thing that he would have to do would be to handle all the utilities.

Now it is from this analysis that the experts will then be able to create the report wherein the taxes will be lessened. Now it is because of accelerated depreciation wherein the taxes were actually lessened. Now one great thing that would come out from this practice would be that one will be having the opportunity to be able to see what his real estate liabilities are and then he can actually be able to lessen those liabilities.




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