Qualified Intermediary, Section 1031 Exchanges, Iowa, Midwest, and across the US

A few weeks back, the Internal Revenue Service and the Tax Division of the Justice Department took action to encourage potential exchangers to comply with the rules of Section 1031. (In reality, the IRS had little choice given the blatant fraud that was allegedly perpetrated.) A gentleman named W...

This is a follow-up to a posting written yesterday about Return on Equity. In that blog, I promised to return to offer solutions for increasing the investor’s Return on Equity, and that is the subject of this post. Please check out yesterday’s blog if you have any question about what Return on Eq...

Return on Equity is the subject today. In an earlier blog, I promised to get back to the ideas that were presented last Saturday at the Omaha Landlord Association’s event that featured Tom Lundstedt, “the funniest investment and tax guy in America.” The crux of what I took out of the seminar was ...

Last Saturday, March 29, 2008, the Omaha Landlord Association put on a great event. The day featured speaker Tom Lundstedt (www.tomlundstedt.com), who is billed as “the funniest investment and tax guy in America!” Based on my experience on Saturday, if he is not the funniest, I don’t know who is...

A recent survey of farmland real estate brokers shows that the price of Iowa’s best farmland rose by an average of 12 percent from September 2007 through February 2008. This survey was conducted by the Iowa Farm and Land Chapter 2 Realtors Land Institute, as it has been done every March and Septe...

I have been honored with an invitation to speak at the Two Rivers Real Estate Investor’s Association monthly meeting on Wednesday, March 19, 2008. The meeting will be held at the Agribusiness of Iowa Building, 900 Des Moines Street, Des Moines, IA, from 6:00 pm to 7:30 pm. Click for map. There i...

Recently, the Internal Revenue Service put out a nice little summary of Section 1031 like-kind, tax-deferred exchanges. “FS-2008-18” (FS = Fact Sheet) does a great job of summarizing the requirements, pitfalls, and advantages of like-kind exchanges. The article starts off by observing that gener...

Do you want an easy way to learn why you and your clients should consider a Section 1031 tax-deferred exchange? Over the past few weeks, I have been fine-tuning a couple of Buy and Hold vs. Buy and Exchange Spreadsheets. I think they are finally ready for prime-time, so I want to make them availa...

Midwest farmland prices increased an average of 16% in 2007, according to the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank’s  annual survey of agricultural lenders. The 7th Federal Reserve District that is based in Chicago consists of all of Iowa and half or more of four other states: Michigan, Wisconsin, Indian...

Guidance on the exchange of vacation homes via Revenue Procedure 2008-16 was provided recently by the Internal Revenue Service. This procedure was brought about as a result of last year’s case in Tax Court Moore v. Commissioner, (T.C. Memo 2007-134) and a subsequent report by the Treasury Inspect...