Posts Tagged ‘slef directed ira llc’

LLC Structures and Self Directed IRAs

Friday, June 4th, 2010

People who use self directed IRAs can use the Limited Liability Company structure with their investments. This means that the account holder is accountable for his investments, not a custodian. The account holder manages his transactions by himself.

Reducing fees is always a major component of why you would want to do a transaction by yourself. All the profits from the LLC also receive the same IRA tax deduction treatment.  A self directed IRA gives the account holder the chance to invest the way they want to.

If you have a self directed IRA and want to use a limited liability company here are a few facts to remember. Limited liability companies are legal companies with limited liability. They work as a combination of corporate and partnership business companies.

The Swanson v. Commissioner case is what brought Self directed IRAs in to the lime light with LLC strategies. In 1996 the case granted investors the rights to pass profits that they receive through the LLC. That meant they could do the same for IRA investments and still receive tax favorable treatment.

A lot of people feel that there was not validity with the case Swanson v. Commissioner. Some people do not feel comfortable with the checkbook control system. Checkbook control type systems usually only have account holders with authority.

If you only have one person who has the authority for the LLC it is hard for anyone else to get things accomplished. Usually people who are unhappy with the method are custodians. There are other mandates that do not use the custodian, however, so most validity cases don’t have much backing behind them.

The LLC is a business entity. It is termed an unincorporated association. It is a business that has a limited liability.

Limited liability is the main characteristic that the LLC shares with a corporation. It shares a common characteristic of pass-through income taxation with partnership businesses. These are reasons why they are commonly identified with both corporations and partnership businesses.

Self Directed IRA – Unrelated Debt Finance Income (UDFI)

Sunday, February 7th, 2010

A subset of UBIT is the Unrelated Debt-Financed Income (UDFI) tax. Under IRC § 514, the IRS will assess a tax on any income that is derived from the use of “acquisition indebtedness” in passive Self Directed IRA investments. For example, if your Self Directed IRA uses $30,000 of its own funds and also borrows $70,000 (using a non-recourse note, of course) to purchase a $100,000 rental property that generates $10,000 annual rent, the IRS would assess UDFI tax on about $7,000 of the profit (since 70% of the investment came from leverage). It is “about $7,000” because it is not simply a one-time fraction of loan-to-value. When calculating your UDFI tax percentage, you use the average indebtedness of the past 12 months and divide that by the adjusted basis in the property (typically, the original purchase price). So, as you pay down the mortgage each year, the UDFI tax percentage becomes less. One year after paying your final mortgage payment, the UDFI tax disappears altogether. When selling passive investments for a profit, the UDFI fraction will determine the taxable amount. Then, appropriate capital gains rates are applied to that amount (trust rates for short-term gains; capital gain rates for long-term gains. [See IRS Pub. 598.]

Remember that UDFI rules apply only to passive investments. If your IRA makes an investment, regardless of leverage, in an active (pass-through) business, including any active real estate business (flipping, rehabbing, developing raw land, etc), then the net income (above $1,000) is subject to UBIT.

Disclaimer

This brief discussion of prohibited transactions and UBIT/UDFI is not intended to be relied upon as legal or tax advice. It is very general information and is designed only to make you aware of some issues you might not have thought of and may need to discuss with your advisors. These rules can be very complex. Some of the rules have exceptions (and even exceptions to the exceptions!) and rules can and do change