Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Debt Can Be Good With A 1031 Exchange

By Kevin Y. Delno

Although 1031 Exchanges are primarily used to shift our equity from one property to another, there are ways of recovering some of that equity for use as leisure or further investment purposes. There are two ways to recover money from your property - before or after the 1031 Exchange is completed.

To keep in line with the 1031 rationale, all of the proceeds from the sale are supposed to pass to the qualified intermediary - this prevents you from receiving any cash benefit from the sale. But, suppose you want that new car or want to take the family on a vacation and don't have the cash to do it. So, you decide to refinance your property shortly before the 1031 exchange and use that equity for your desired luxury item. A smart move? Probably not, according to IRS v. Garcia.

In IRS vs. Garcia, it was decided that Garcia when refinancing his property in anticipation of the 1031 exchange, should have paid taxes on the money not used on the new property. Garcia tried to avoid the tax and ran afoul of the 1031 rationale and the IRS.

In order for you to avoid the Garcia issue, you may decide to refinance the replacement property. In post-exchange financing, taxpayers may not want to leave all of their equity in the replacement property - some want to take out that equity and buy more real estate. However, how long should you wait after completing the 1031 exchange before you take out the equity in the replacement property?

There is debate on how long one must wait after the 1031 exchange to show the IRS, through the closing statement, that you have invested all of your equity into the replacement property. Some say wait a nanosecond to establish a separate transaction and a new settlement statement to show that the replacement property was encumbered with new debt via a loan or a mortgage. Once this is established, there is a cash payment from the lender to you. Essentially, you have tapped into a pool of money made available through the 1031 exchange.

Whether the nanosecond exchange is legal is debatable. There are risks because there is no definitive IRS rule regarding how long you have to keep the equity in the replacement property. The conservative school of thought says to keep the money in the replacement property in order to avoid the Garcia trap. In this case, keep the equity in the replacement property until the following tax year, or until two years have passed from the 1031 exchange to the ultimate refinance. - 23210

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