Trump Bails Himself Out? Overlooked Provision In Stimulus Bill Affords $170 Billion In Real Estate Tax Breaks

The recently signed $2 trillion in fiscal stimulus includes a little known provision for the country’s largest real estate investors.

On the overlooked page 203 of the recently passed 880 page bill, there’s a provision that allows for wealthy investors to use losses generated by real estate to minimize taxes on profits from other things, like capital gains. Over 10 years, the cost of the change is slated to be $170 billion, according to the New York Times.

Under the current tax code, when real estate investors generate losses from writing down the value of their properties, they can use some of those losses to offset other taxes. But the 2017 tax cut package limited some of those losses to shelter $500,000 of a married couple’s non-business income. Leftover losses got rolled out to subsequent years. The new bill lifts the $500,000 cap.

Does anyone happen to know any wealthy real estate investors this could benefit?

The new bill not only lifts the cap for this year, but for two years retroactively. Which means if you’re a couple more than $500,000 in annual capital gains or income from sources other than business, you could be getting a massive tax break. The break was found to be “the second-biggest tax giveaway in the $2 trillion stimulus package,” according to the NYT.

Peter Buell, who runs tax services for Marcum, said: 

“It’s a pretty big deal. A separate provision in the stimulus bill, which removes restrictions on losses that people can carry over from previous years, would make the tax break even more lucrative.”

And not only could Trump benefit from such a break, so could those close to him. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kusher was already accused in 2018 of not paying federal income taxes due to paper losses from depreciating his company’s properties. This was despite the fact that Kusher has “significant wealth” and earnings from other sources. 

But hey, with the Fed printing trillions of dollars and doing hundreds of billions in QE weekly, what’s another $170 billion among friends?