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Castle Rock Tax Solutions We serve growth-oriented real estate investors who are actively scaling their portfolios and need more than compliance-level tax advice.

If you give to charity by writing checks or giving cash, there's a better way, especially for business owners with inves...
10/22/2026

If you give to charity by writing checks or giving cash, there's a better way, especially for business owners with investments.

Give appreciated assets instead.

If you've held stock or other investments for more than a year and they've gone up, you can donate them directly to charity.

You generally deduct the full fair market value.

And neither you nor the charity pays capital gains tax on the appreciation.

Compare that to selling the stock, paying tax on the gain, and donating what's left.

The charity gets less, and you get a smaller benefit.

One thing that changed this year.

Starting in 2026, itemizers only get to deduct charitable gifts above 0.5% of their AGI, and anyone in the top 37% bracket has the benefit capped at 35%.

So bunching a few years of giving into one bigger gift, usually through a donor-advised fund, matters more than it used to.

A donor-advised fund makes all of this easier.

You contribute appreciated assets, take the deduction in the year you give, and recommend grants to charities over time.

If you're already planning a big gift this year, the asset you give matters as much as the amount.

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"Everyone with a business gets the 20% QBI deduction automatically." For a lot of the owners I work with, it's not that ...
10/22/2026

"Everyone with a business gets the 20% QBI deduction automatically."

For a lot of the owners I work with, it's not that simple.

The qualified business income deduction can be worth up to 20% of your pass-through business income.

Good news first: last year's tax law made it permanent, and it widened the income range where the limits phase in.

More owners get the full deduction than before.

But above certain income levels, limits still kick in.

For service businesses like consulting, financial services, and many professional practices, the deduction phases out at higher incomes.

For everyone else it can be capped by how much W-2 wages the business pays or how much qualifying property it holds.

S-Corp owners have a balancing act.

Your salary reduces your QBI, but it can also be what makes you eligible for more of the deduction.

And rentals only qualify if they rise to the level of a trade or business.

Follow along here.

A scenario for real estate investors (details changed). An investor had put his first two rentals into his existing S-Co...
10/21/2026

A scenario for real estate investors (details changed).

An investor had put his first two rentals into his existing S-Corp, the one he used for his construction business, on his previous accountant's advice.

It seemed efficient.

One entity, one return.

Then he wanted to refinance one of the properties and pull cash out, and maybe later move it into its own LLC.

That's when the problems showed up.

Moving the property out of the S-Corp would be treated like a sale at today's value.

And the cash-out distribution risked exceeding his basis, because the mortgage never added to his basis in the S-Corp.

We couldn't cleanly undo the first two without a cost, so we planned around them.

Every property after that went into a separate LLC outside the S-Corp.

The best time for this conversation is before the closing, not after.

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For real estate investors, a federal tax lien is a problem that reaches far beyond your tax bill.When the IRS files a No...
10/21/2026

For real estate investors, a federal tax lien is a problem that reaches far beyond your tax bill.

When the IRS files a Notice of Federal Tax Lien, it becomes public record and attaches to your property.

The real estate you own now and the property you buy later.

That can stall a sale, complicate a refinance, and make lenders nervous about new deals.

Title companies will find it.

There are tools.

The IRS can discharge the lien from a specific property so a sale can close, or subordinate it so a refinance can go through.

In some cases a lien can be withdrawn once you enter a qualifying payment arrangement.

But those tools take time and paperwork, and they work far better before you're under contract with a closing date.

If you have tax debt and you're planning to buy, sell, or refinance, deal with the lien first.

Follow along here.

If you're planning to sell a property or a business in the next few months, the calendar might be worth as much as the n...
10/20/2026

If you're planning to sell a property or a business in the next few months, the calendar might be worth as much as the negotiation.

Closing on December 30 versus January 4 puts the gain in two completely different tax years.

If this year's income is already high, maybe a big bonus year, another sale, a strong business year, pushing the closing into January could land the gain in a year where it's taxed more favorably.

If next year is shaping up to be the bigger year, the opposite can be true.

Closing before December 31 might be the better move.

It also matters for estimated payments, state residency changes, and whether you can offset the gain with other moves before the year ends.

None of this requires changing the deal.

It just means knowing the tax impact before you set the closing date.

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"I drive from home to my office every day. Those are business miles." Unfortunately the IRS calls those commuting miles,...
10/20/2026

"I drive from home to my office every day. Those are business miles."

Unfortunately the IRS calls those commuting miles, and they're not deductible.

Driving from your home to your regular place of work is commuting, even if you take calls in the car and think about work the whole way.

The trips from your office to a client site, a property showing, the post office, a supplier?

Those are business miles.

There's an important exception.

If your home office is your principal place of business, trips from home to other work locations can count as business travel.

That's one of the underrated benefits of a legitimate home office.

It changes the character of your driving.

Either way, keep a real log.

Mileage is one of the first places an auditor looks.

Follow along here.

A scenario about losses nobody was tracking (details changed). An investor had owned a small multifamily building for ni...
10/19/2026

A scenario about losses nobody was tracking (details changed).

An investor had owned a small multifamily building for nine years.

It showed a passive loss almost every year because of depreciation and a couple of rough vacancy stretches.

He'd changed preparers twice.

Somewhere along the way, the suspended loss carryforward just stopped showing up on his returns.

He was about to sell, and he assumed the only tax consequence was going to be a big gain.

We rebuilt the history from his old returns.

The suspended losses were real, and on a fully taxable sale they would be released.

That changed the math on the sale in a big way.

And it only happened because somebody went back and looked before the closing instead of after.

If you've switched preparers, make sure your carryforwards switched with you.

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Here's a consequence of tax debt most people don't know exists. The IRS can certify your debt to the State Department, a...
10/19/2026

Here's a consequence of tax debt most people don't know exists.

The IRS can certify your debt to the State Department, and that can block your passport.

It applies to "seriously delinquent tax debt."

For 2026 that means a balance over $66,000 including penalties and interest (the number is indexed each year), where the IRS has filed a lien or issued a levy.

Once certified, the State Department can deny a new passport or a renewal, and in some cases revoke the one you already have.

For business owners who travel for sourcing, conferences, or family, that's a real problem.

There are exceptions.

If you're in an installment agreement, have a pending offer in compromise, or have a collection due process hearing pending, you generally don't get certified.

In other words, engaging with the IRS is exactly what protects you from this.

Follow along here.

A Sunday strategy for real estate investors: your rentals usually don't belong in an S-Corp.S-Corps are great for active...
10/18/2026

A Sunday strategy for real estate investors: your rentals usually don't belong in an S-Corp.

S-Corps are great for active businesses with profit that's subject to self-employment tax.

Rental income generally isn't subject to that tax to begin with, so the main benefit doesn't apply.

The downsides are real.

If you ever want to move a property out of an S-Corp, it's treated as sold at fair market value.

You can owe tax on appreciation without selling anything.

S-Corp shareholders also don't get basis from the entity's mortgage debt the way partners in an LLC taxed as a partnership often do.

That can limit the losses you can use and make refinance distributions taxable.

For most rental portfolios, an LLC taxed as a disregarded entity or a partnership keeps more flexibility.

Getting the property into the right entity on day one is a lot cheaper than fixing it later.

Follow along for more.

Saturday myth: "The truck is titled in my LLC, so it's 100% deductible."The name on the title doesn't decide what's dedu...
10/17/2026

Saturday myth: "The truck is titled in my LLC, so it's 100% deductible."

The name on the title doesn't decide what's deductible.

How the asset gets used does.

If your "business" truck takes the kids to school, goes on weekend trips, and sits in your driveway as the family's only vehicle, the IRS is going to look at business use percentage, not the registration.

Same with the phone plan, the laptop, and the "company" credit card.

Putting something in the business's name doesn't turn personal use into business use.

It can actually create problems.

Personal expenses paid through the business can look like disguised distributions, and they can damage your liability protection.

Keep business assets truly business, track the mixed-use ones honestly, and you're on solid ground.

Follow along here.

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