Solving the Tax Issues of the CO2 Funds

Since we began our Carbon Capture investments back in 2019, we’ve found that strategic tax planning is what’s key to gaining the full benefits of these funds. There is a certain strategy that’s necessary to reduce tax liability in the first year.

As of 2023, Bonus Depreciation is 80% in the first year with 20% depreciation spread out over the first six years. The use of leverage — like the arrangement of our Leveraged Funds — will allow for the year-one bonus depreciation to be 168% of your investment.

As time goes on, we are starting to understand how taxes are affected in subsequent years.

For the 50% leveraged funds, the investor ends up paying tax on the $40,000 per share revenue plus the $33,000 principal paydown of the 50% loan in the second year.

That loan is paid by the fund, but this is still considered as income to the investor and is passed on through the K-1. That is a total taxable income of $73,000 for Years 1-3 and then $40,000 for Years 4-7.

The point is that once we take the bonus depreciation there are no more deductions left for that fund and the income is fully taxable.

The Tax Problem

To cover the tax liability for the fund income for the next year, many of you are investing every year. The upside is that you are creating great cash flow streams. 

The problem is you are rolling up a giant snowball in tax liability.

Real Estate Investing

We need a way to use some of the proceeds and other investment capital to invest in Real Estate. The strategy needs to address several issues:

1. We need to have depreciation.
2. We need to extend cashflow beyond 7 years since the leveraged deal ends at that time.
3. We need to avoid taxable events like an asset sale.
4. We need to have cashflow to support the strategy.
5. We need to convert active income to passive income.

If we can identify a real estate asset that can address these issues, we can solve some of the tax issues created by the CO2 funds. Many deals we see today in multifamily and self-storage are structured for value add and sale in 3-5 years.

This doesn’t make sense for our situation because it will just create a taxable event. We would have the option of a 1031 but that would only make sense if we had a large gain, and we could upgrade the asset.

After spending the last few months exploring opportunities, we believe we have found a project that fits our criteria …

Reducing Your Tax Pay Out with our Real Estate Fund

This investment aligns with the solution we’ve been searching for to address the tax issues of our CO2 tax funds. If we use some of our active income to buy passive real estate assets, we will create more balance in the portfolio.

The main benefit of this investment is depreciation. We will do a cost segregation on the properties to allow for a bonus depreciation of about 60% this year.

The projected cash flow on is a 6% preferred return with a 50/50 split. With rents hitting record highs in the region due to the influx of people, business, tech, and tourism, this red-hot market has a lot to offer investors.

You can join our Real Estate Funds Priority Access List here. 

Infinite Return Model

This real estate investment uses a financial strategy called the “infinite return model”. In this model, we would buy the property at a good price and add value through improvements, rent increases, and possible zoning changes.

Cost segregation would give us 60-80% bonus depreciation in Year 1, that could create a cashflow that would support the deal but allow for maximum equity growth.

Finally, we would do a cash out refinance every 3-5 years and return most or all of the initial investor capital, tax-free. The investor could then reinvest this in another real estate asset and repeat the process with the same capital.

I want to emphasize that unlike selling the property, a cash out refinance can take advantage of value add, appreciation, and equity paydown without creating capital gains.

Think of this like a tax-free ATM.

Converting Active Income to Passive Income

Investing in Real Estate assets creates passive income. The CO2 funds have an active income which is taxed at an ordinary tax rate. 

By using the income from CO2 funds to invest in Real Estate assets, we are effectively converting from active income assets to passive income assets and reducing the tax rate.

Other advantages of this model would include a modest cash flow of 6% preferred cash flow. We would also get 27-40 years straight line depreciation for each asset we invest in.

We would get tax deductions for property expenses and interest on the mortgage which would likely offset most or all the cash flow income.

Another advantage that I’d like to mention is that the value of each asset should continue to appreciate over time. Each time we build up enough equity to justify a cash out refinance we will continue to harvest our equity to reinvest in more assets.

Conclusion

By investing in both CO2 funds and Infinite Return Real Estate, we can take some control of the ever-growing snowball of CO2 fund taxes and use the real estate depreciation to reduce the size of that snowball.

We can convert our active income to passive income and shrink the impact of taxes. We can also extend the cashflow on the leveraged CO2 funds beyond 7 years.

I am working with an expert to figure out some optimum ratios for this combination of investing. We have identified some potential properties that are currently available.

If we can close a deal, I am going to personally invest and may have opportunities for you to invest alongside me. Please stay tuned for information on future investment opportunities.

Join our Real Estate Funds Priority Access List to get updates on our upcoming deals. 

This newsletter is for informational purposes and to gauge potential investor interest. This email summary is not intended to be a securities offering of any kind.

Prior to making any decision to contribute capital, all investors must review and execute all private offering documents, including the Private Placement Memorandum and its exhibits, which contains the complete information about this investment opportunity.

The information contained herein is from sources believed to be reliable, however no representation by Freedom Impact Consulting, LLC, either expressed or implied, is made as to the accuracy of any information on this property and all investors should conduct their own research to determine the accuracy of any statements made.

Please check with your tax and legal professional as Freedom Impact Consulting LLC does not provide tax or legal advice and the above is not intended to or should be construed as such advice. Your specific circumstances may, and likely will, vary.