Real Estate Tax Lawyer

Real Estate Business and Tax Attorney and CPA

At Evolution Tax and Legal, our property tax attorneys and CPAs provide business and tax planning services to individuals and businesses alike involved in the ownership, maintenance, development, and investment into real estate, whether you’re located solely here in the U.S. or abroad. 

Whether you’re an individual investor looking to generate tax-free, passive cash flow, or a vertically-integrated development fund taking on your most recent round of capital calls, we can assist you. Our real estate tax lawyers understand the challenges of keeping up with the constant compliance requirements surrounding the ownership, investment, and management of real estate, and bring you the experience of a Big 4 accounting company. 

Our Real Estate Business and Tax Services

Facilitating and Planning for Overseas Investment

More commonly, foreign investors and U.S. real estate owners and developers are working together to facilitate investment into A-Class real estate projects. However, if not properly accounted for, the casual taking of an investment from a non-U.S. person or business can result in harsh penalties to both parties, including the imposition of flat 30% taxes, required over withholding on sales of real estate via the Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act of 1980 (FIRPTA), and large civil penalties for the failure to properly report said foreign investment.

Our team of international business and property tax lawyers can account for the many requirements, nuances, and potential ‘cow-pies’ that come with taking foreign investment to facilitate U.S. real estate ownership and development. We can help you and your investors facilitate the correct structure to avoid onerous tax withholding regimes, penalties, and compliance requirements, and help return the tax-free cash flow to foreign investors that the U.S. so highly touts.

Choice of Entity, Formation, and Management Agreements

Whether you operate solely in the U.S. or internationally, the first consideration to owning, investing into, and developing real estate is your choice of entity. Many tend to think the traditional LLC is sufficient for their purposes; however, they overlook the other options available to them. This can leave real estate investors, developers, and owners paying higher taxes and/or losing the benefit that real estate is otherwise supposed to provide. 

Depending on your current situation and future plans, other entity choices, such as C corporations, S corporations, Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), and Partnerships should be considered. Our property tax lawyers take into account your current situation and future plans to help recommend, properly form, and implement the entity that best fits your needs.

Furthermore, if engaging in a joint venture investment into real estate, partners and investors need to ensure that their agreed upon management and investor agreements are compliant with applicable State and Federal law, and that they protect the managers, owners, and investors in all situations. If provisions are poorly negotiated and/or drafted, this is likely to lead to litigation down the road. The real estate tax lawyers here at Evolution Tax and Legal have worked with multiple funds to draw up the proper management, operational, and investor documents depending on your operating structure. 

Capital Gain Deferral and Mitigation

All owners, investors, and developers of real estate need to understand the capital gain deferral and mitigation strategies available to them. Without this, you can be stuck ‘holding the bag’ of excess capital gains that could otherwise be avoided and/or mitigated. This is true whether you are based in the U.S. or abroad.

Our team of international business and property tax attorneys is well-versed in facilitating capital gain deferral and mitigation strategies for owners and operators of real estate. Below are just some of the strategies our real estate tax lawyers help our clients utilize and implement specific to real estate transactions:

• 1031 Exchanges, including ‘Drops and Swaps’ and Reverse Starker Exchanges
• Structured Installment Sales
• Deferred Sales Trusts
• Delaware Statutory Trusts
• Exclusion of Gain on Sale of Primary Residence
• Liquidating Distributions and Subsequent Sales of Real Estate From Qualifying Entities

Real Estate Fund and Investor Compliance

If you have owned and operated a joint venture into real estate, you can understand that there are numerous tax and legal filing, compliance, and even potential quarterly, semi-annual, and annual testing requirements depending on the type of entity operated through. What is even more complex is when you source investments from outside the U.S. The failure to keep up with the legal and tax compliance requirements can lead owners and operators of real estate to become subject to very hard civil penalties. In that case, not only will you be paying penalties that could have otherwise been avoided, you will have to explain to your joint venture partners and/or investors why they are now also faced with the same penalties, and even potentially an audit.

Our team of international business and property tax lawyers and CPAs are well-versed in these compliance requirements as it pertains to joint venture real estate ownership and investment. Some of the items we can assist you with include:

• Annual tax filings;
• REIT compliance testing;
• Preparation of individual shareholder tax statements and tax basis tracking; 
• International investor withholding requirements and related tax statements; and
• Federal and state withholding exemptions. 

Property Tax Consulting and Planning

If you have ever engaged in a transfer of real property, you then know that the local property tax assessor is likely to reassess the property value as of the date of transfer and increase the overall property tax due on the property. If a transfer of property is incorrectly accounted for as part of a joint venture, the increased expense from the associated property tax reassessment can be devastating to the expected returns on the property. 

Transfers of property can qualify for exemptions from property tax reassessment, so long as the appropriate planning is done up front and appropriately reported with the local county assessor’s office. Our property tax attorneys have helped investors, real estate funds, families, and other individuals take advantage of the property tax reassessment exemptions otherwise available to them and maintain the lower property tax base they are otherwise entitled to.

Other Real Estate Consulting and Planning

There is a myriad of other services our team of international business and real estate tax attorneys and CPAs can assist you with as it pertains to your real estate investment and operation, including:

• Increasing tax free return of cash flow through cost segregation studies and tax-free debt financed distributions.
• Preparing waterfall calculations.
• Assisting taxpayers with out of county real estate investment and structuring.
• Contesting property tax reassessments and requesting refunds.
• “Qualified Business Income” (e.g. 20% pass-through deduction) consulting.

Schedule a Free Consultation With a Property Tax Attorney Today

If you are an individual looking to generate passive, tax-free cash flow or a business owner taking on capital calls, the real estate tax lawyers and CPAs at Evolution Tax and Legal can help. Contact us online or call our office at (949) 229-6015 to schedule a free consultation.