Title

The Partnership: Preserving Capital Gains on Real Estate Investments

Abstract

This paper considers the use of partnerships as an effective tool for preserving capital gains on real estate investments. For tax purposes, the Internal Revenue Service generally treats a limited liability company as a partnership. This form of organization is widely used for real estate investments, and by taking a few simple precautions an LLC may ensure that any gain on its investments in undeveloped real property will be treated as capital gains. Such treatment may reduce the LLC’s tax costs substantially.

The Fifth Circuit developed a framework that has proven invaluable for analyzing the activity of the LLC to determine whether it will be afforded capital gains status. This paper spends a considerable amount of time analyzing that framework as well as exploring examples of how the courts have applied this framework. Additionally, this paper discusses choice of entity concerns for investors and briefly analyzes the life cycle of a typical real estate investment partnership.

Disciplines

Accounting Law | Business Organizations Law | Property Law and Real Estate | Taxation-Federal | Tax Law

Date of this Version

June 2006