Joseph Viery launched USTAGI with the purpose of offering high-quality cost segregation research. He has assisted property owners to defer or eliminate millions of dollars in income taxes as a Cost Segregation Professional, CSP, by utilizing IRS-compliant cost segregation studies. Joseph has completed thousands of cost segregation studies for clients in a variety of industries, ranging from $500,000,000 commercial structures to $50,000 single-family houses, since becoming a CSP in 2007. He speaks at workshops all over the country and is a frequent guest on industry podcasts. He has a natural capacity to translate complex sets of rules into simple themes.
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Levering IRS Compliant Tax Strategies with Joseph Viery
Brett:
I’m excited about our next guest. He’s out of California. He’s on the frontline of tax strategies and figuring out ways to be IRS compliant and to help his clients in the folks that he serves to create and preserve more wealth. He is a part of or owner of US Tax Advisors Group, Inc. that combines technology and engineering expertise to utilize compliant practice that follows IRS tax code in US law. Their objective is to help business leaders optimize income tax deductions and credits maximizing their growth by increasing profitability, developing environmentally friendly energy solutions, obtaining higher returns on investment and so much more. Please welcome the show with me, Joseph Viery. Joe, how are you doing?
Joseph:
I’m doing well. Thanks for having me on your show, Brett. Appreciate it.
Brett:
Absolutely. For our listeners getting to know you for the first time, would you give us a little bit more about your story and your current focus?
Joseph:
My story is this. I’ve always been an entrepreneur and I owned a business that was not related to real estate for 20 years. In 2007, I sold it. Then, I started working for the California Association of Realtors (CAR), and I was helping their members and also their members’ clients with tax strategies that was involving financial planning, and insurance products. Then something happened in 2007 and 2008, and the CAR drove off the cliff and the membership of CAR went to pretty much skeletons there. Not very many active Realtors back in the day. Prior to that, somebody asked me about this, or they wanted to talk to me about this new tax strategy. I blew him off and finally, I said, okay, tell me your story. He told me about Cost Segregation. I had clients that needed it, they had a $50,000 income tax bill staring them in the face. I got them into Cost Segregation. Then when the economy disintegrated, the owner of that company said, why don’t you join my firm? So since 2007, I’ve been in the Cost Segregation industry.
Brett:
Fantastic. Before we dive into all the top secrets about that, and the amazing benefits that Cost Segregation provides. I want to take one other step back, Joe, I believe we’ve all been given certain gifts in this life. These gifts are given to us to be a blessing and help others. Maybe go back to your high school days, maybe the college days, the earlier days, and tell us what are those, maybe one or two gifts, that you believe you were given? How does that help how you help and bless people today?
Joseph:
I think one of the gifts, two of the gifts. One is I have an incredible sense of humor. Maybe that’s not a gift, but I think it is because you know helping people laugh and taking their minds off the mundane things in life is one of my gifts. I don’t get myself dragged down to the depths of despair. So I think that’s probably the number one.
Brett:
That’s a great gift. Absolutely. Especially dealing with tax. All this heaviness. All the IRS and tax and I got this big tax bill that I didn’t know about. I’m wondering if you can save the day, Joe, and bring the expertise to help me figure this thing out. So let’s dive right into that. What’s the number one secret to Cost Segregation as well as making sure that you stay compliant leveraging this tool and maybe a couple of others we’ll touch on here so that you can create and preserve our wealth?
Joseph:
Well, like every strategy out there the right way and the wrong way to do it. I’m not going to go into the depths. But what the IRS did is, they sued the Hospital Corporation of America. One part of that case, which was in 1997 is the judge who did not like the IRS, his case at all said look, you’ve got to tell everybody that they shouldn’t be doing Cost Segregation and how you want them to do it. So in 2004, the IRS published the audit technique guidelines for Cost Segregation, it’s online, everybody can read it if you’re not getting to sleep at night read this 200-page document. The bottom line is that gives us all the rules. If you want a quality study, the IRS tells you how to do it. So our mantra from my very beginning has been following the audit technique guidelines in doing it correctly. So my biggest tip is to find a company out there that follows the audit technique guidelines and does the guidelines, give you 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 steps of what you need to do to perform a quality study. That’s our mantra. That’s what we do.
Brett:
By the way, you can learn more about Joseph Viery at ustagi.com. So first thing is to understand what’s available for you, what’s out there, and then work with a group that is going to make sure to follow the letter of the code and do the necessary steps. Of course, you probably have some of the experience in these and have done lots of these. Perhaps had to defend this versus their, clients versus the IRS auditor along those lines. But at the end of the day, Cost Segregation is what Joe?
Joseph:
Cost Segregation is relatively simple. It’s very complicated, complex, but it’s simple. All we’re doing is we’re accelerating the depreciation expense the IRS allows building owners. What depreciation is simply the IRS recognizes that you’re using up your building, it is decaying in front of your eyes through every year that you own it. So for residential buildings, straight-line depreciation, the IRS says divide by 27 and a half years how they came up with that, I don’t know and I never looked it up. For commercial buildings, it’s 39 years. So all we’re doing is telling the client, would you want to wait 27 and a half years to get all of these deductions, don’t forget, if you want to defer or eliminate your income taxes, the higher the expense items you have the lower your taxable income. It’s very simple. Bookkeeping, anybody understands that? So what do we do? We give you that depreciation all upfront, in the taxes that you buy the property. So we’re not doing any hocus pocus. That’s all we’re doing. That gives you the ability to take a big chunk of that depreciation and use it against taxable income.
Brett:
It’s one of my favorite strategies and exactly right with multifamily 27 and a half years commercial 39 years. Then also if you can buy, first of all, it’s cash flowing, producing real estate, it has some value add opportunity, and that you’re buying it on the intrinsic value. But also you can leverage very low-interest-rate debt, and that can help you get the full amount. Remember, your depreciation schedule is based upon not the land, Because the lands maybe 20% of that. But let’s say you bought a $10 million building and 2 million of that is subject to the land. So you have 8 million of depreciable assets multifamily seen about 25% of that 8 million in year one or two is generally what you can do. So we’re talking in that scenario, just to break it down for folks, if you take 8 million by 25%. That’s $2 million, let’s say you had a gain somewhere else for 2 million, or you’re in a 1031 exchange, and it’s failing and you’re like, what am I gonna do? Well, you have that $8 million deal, that $10 million deal over there, which 8 million is you can do 27 and a half years on. Why don’t we accelerate that and wipe it out? Is there anything I’m missing there, Joe?
Joseph:
That’s excellent. That’s exactly what we do. It’s so powerful. One, I’ll go a little step further though because that is basically as you explained it on a value add, that’s phase one. Phase two is what do you do to the value add is you rip everything out and I know what you do in multifamily because we do lots of multifamilies. You know what you do you rip up the countertops, you whip up the flooring, you rip up the window coverings, you throw it in the trash, and you put new items on there. So the other part of our study, which you get with Cost Segregation, is you get the value of the stuff you throw in the trash. That is a tax write-off, you want write-offs. Then the third thing we do is let’s say you spend a million dollars on the renovations, then we do the acceleration on the million dollars.
Brett:
Okay, so make sure I got that because I like a little nuance there. We like to like to geek out on these types of subjects on the Capital Gains Tax Solutions Podcast. That’s the whole reason we’re here. Step one is just that you bought the value for 10. 2 million is not applicable because it’s Lands at eight. Now, you can depreciate that, and then let’s say that’s year one, and you’re saying like, let’s say you’re two, you’re starting the renovations. At that point, you’re saying, as I’m tearing stuff out, I get an additional bonus on that or walk me through the bonus.
Joseph:
Here’s how it works. In 2014. Another great tax bill came to play, which was called the Tangible Property Regulations. So what the IRS said is look, we’re done with all you guys scamming us. So now we’re going to make bright lines so that you guys can’t expense your dog in on all of these things. So they gave us rules, a rulebook, part of the rules is they do not want items on your depreciation schedule. So what’s item number one? Item number one is you bought the building for $8 million. Here’s the building in that $8 million. This is why you need an engineer is the allocated cost for all the building components. So guess what? The roof is in that $8 million. So if you put a new roof on, you basically now have two roofs. You have the old roof in that $8 million, you have the new roof that you spent $100,000 on and they go no, no, you got to get rid of one of those. So obviously, you’re going to get rid of the old roof. Well, how do you know how much that roof is worth? Well, it’s not worth what you pay the roofer for, because that was for the new roof. It’s what was baked in that $8 million. Guess who defines that? We do? So now you know what your write-off value is on that roof.
Brett:
Got it. That stage two is awesome. Stage three be all the new stuff that you’re bringing in there. So you do another study essentially, and you’re like, hey, we just put on new roofs, new countertops, new flooring, new windows, bubble all across the thing, and then you do it again. It’s like the gift that keeps on giving. It’s like Christmas come multiple times, Joe.
Joseph:
Well, a lot of people don’t get or don’t apply, they just forget about the disposition, abandonment study part of it. You don’t need me to do that. Once you get one of my studies, you’ve got the cookbook. So you can figure out what that linear footage of each of whatever kind of countertop you have, that you throw, let’s say you started with laminate, and you went with you convert it to granite. So you’re gonna see on my schedules, laminate, linear square feet, and you let’s say you disposed of 1,500 linear feet, you’ll know what the recipe is to put a value on that ladder, and it’s compliant.
Brett:
So let’s talk about Bonus Depreciation because that was one of the cool things. The Trump tax plan went through, and they get some extra cool stuff. In fact, it might even be before that, but maybe he made it even better. Be that as it may, it’s here right now. So how’s it going to be decelerating the next couple years, and in particular, I want you to talk to those who have active income, and perhaps they’re a married couple and one is high active income. The other one is will say stay-at-home mom, or maybe not working full time, this idea of a real estate professional, and the ability potentially offset income tax on active income through buying real estate and doing what you just said. Could you put that cube, like a Rubik’s Cube, make that all line-up?
Joseph:
Okay, so what we’re dealing with the IRS is there, we provide you with your losses or depreciation, as you are a real estate investor. So basically, you’re either active or passive. Active means you’re deriving most of your income, your primary income from real estate. Passive means you’re an engineer and you’re your engine, you have an engineering income, and you work for somebody or you’re your own person, but that’s your primary source of income. So you would be passive on your real estate. So the bottom line is, you brought up a great concept, the married couple because you could then designate your spouse, as the active participant and the other spouse needs to do is spend 750 hours per year on helping you which is 20 hours a week. In the 20 hours a week can be anything related to real estate, you go to the South of France, and you go look at real estate for a day or two. Well, that’s part of your 750 hours, you read a book, that’s part of your 750 hours. So the bottom line is what I see a lot of my clients do is they take and make the spouse who is a stay at home or is not working as an active income. They’re making her the active partner because I have a lot of clients who are passive investors, and they still use Cost Segregation. However, there are limitations and those are accounting. That’s an accounting concept. We’re not accountants, we are engineers.
Brett:
Okay, so everyone just caught that right because this is like, I mean, the 121 exclusion is awesome. We’re like, you buy a house for 500,000. You sell it for a million it’s tax-free. That’s probably like the cat’s meow you can kind of do that. This is maybe even better depending on your circumstance or at least close to this close to how amazing this is. So if you’re hearing this, there is potential, and give it your CPA, I’m not a CPA and also Joseph. We’re not representing that in every circumstance, it is a little bit different. But understand what is possible with Cost Segregation with buying an investment, real estate, particularly multifamily 27 and a half years, it again, think about a Rubik’s Cube, I like to say, Joe, it’s no longer about cash flow. It’s about tax flow. Right now, it’s always been about both. But it’s more scales is moving towards tax flow. This is where you’ve got to be with pros, they’re going to help tax flow ninjas, who all have their shields and their little spears and all little specialties like Joe’s being Cost Segregation in mine being the Deferred Sales Trust, and all of us getting together around you as the high net worth individual, the millionaire, and we’re all fighting. Otherwise, you’re vulnerable from multiple angles. So the point is, how do you align this with a Rubik’s Cube and imagine all the different colors on different sides right now? Well, you get with Joe, throw it to Joe, and Joe kind of moves it a little bit, and then you throw it to your CPA, he kind of moves a little bit. If you’re exiting an asset, you throw it to me, and I kind of move it a little bit. Basically, we continue to do this where I watched this cool little documentary on kids that do a Rubik’s Cube. Joe, have you seen this one? Where like, six seconds these guys can take in a Rubik’s Cube? If you go like this, and I put it together? I’m like, wow, like my mind is blown. So this is what I’m talking about. So I talked about Joe, the whole concept of this, like hiring the who not being the how getting that not only that professional CPA, you might already in most of our listeners, point 90% already have that. So I’m not saying that. But getting those to level up because they’re CPAs that are kind of backward-looking in the sense of they’re just talking about what happened. They’re saying this is what happened, versus those that are proactive, and working with cost specialists like yourself, just talk about the importance of that.
Joseph:
The one thing is there. Most people who own real estate, most clients, I wouldn’t say most, but a lot of them just don’t have the right accountants. You need an accountant who understands real estate because I will tell you right now, the average accountant probably doesn’t know how to spell depreciation, does not know anything about depreciation. So what do they do, they just kind of ignore it? They just get out their calculators and divide by 27 and a half done. They don’t need Joe, and they don’t want Joe in their life, because they’re going like, well, I don’t want the strange guy coming in, here’s what we do, we will work with your account, I’m part of a team of people that will work with the client to figure out the best strategies, I do not care which way they go, we honestly don’t. Meaning that if you find another strategy, or if you have another situation where you’re at, get me on the phone call with your accountant, because we don’t charge for that I will get on your accountant, and I’ll explain the nuts and bolts, I’ll answer his misconceptions. Because honestly, there are some situations where you shouldn’t do accelerated depreciation. But they’re so rare that I can count them on one hand, or maybe fingers.
Brett:
Yeah, let’s do a little lightning round on that. That’d be good. By the way, I couldn’t agree with you more. It’s likewise there’s just because the CPA hasn’t heard of it, or is not familiar with it, or doesn’t have their client that’s done it, you got to realize from their perspective, they’re seen as like the doctor of tax, and well there. So when you come in, and you say, I’ve got this other specialist over here, sometimes they can feel threatened, or sometimes they’re just so busy, and they just don’t have the time. They’re like, I got so much going on. I don’t want to say yes to something that I haven’t either done personally had a client do that, it’s gonna come back on me. So their default answer is no, I probably wouldn’t do that or no, it probably is probably not worth it or whatever their objection is. But if they say yes, and it does work out, well, Joe looks really good. They made it look okay. But if they say yes, and it doesn’t work out, then all of a sudden, they’re held liable. So it’s this whole light kind of circular thing that we face the same thing every single day on the Deferred Sales Trust, although the Tax Attorneys CPAs are the ones who created it. So we’re not claiming to be that we say, hey, no, come talk with our CPA Tax Attorneys, the ones that are the brain surgeons, if you will, the doctors of tax. Honestly, 98% of the time when they actually sit down and spend time with us. Not only do their eyes open up, but they also join us, and they actually session is referrals, and they become a part of what we’re doing. Which is, by the way, if you’re curious about the Deferred Sales Trust, go to capitalgainstaxsolutions.com. But let’s go into the situations where it’s not a good time to do a job. So first, what’s the minimum? What you’d say, Brett, I think you’d have at least x to make sense in general, Again, there’s a lot of other things there, but what’s kind of the minimum?
Joseph:
Here’s the difference. One of the main differences between the US Tax Advisors Group, Inc. and a lot of others out there is that we do two types of studies. I told you that our bread and butter what we do is called the Detailed Engineering Study. That is the number one type of study written by the IRS and the ATG technical guidelines. We also do another study which is down the list, but it’s called a Modeling Study. We will do that for buildings with a basis of $500,000 or less. The reason I bring that out is that there are very few people that are doing these types of studies. There’s a lot of folks out there that own real estate, but they own single-family homes all over the country. So now they can enjoy accelerated depreciation by using a Modeling Study which base basically cost hundreds of dollars versus the Detailed Engineering costs 1000s because on the detailed engineering, we are going out to the property and we are measuring all of the building components and the engineer will do the takeoffs on all of the measurings that we do in the field. So obviously, those kinds of studies cost 1000s.
Brett:
Okay, so we should get that. By the way, doesn’t work for a primary home, yes or no?
Joseph:
No.
Brett:
Because it’s an only investment property, you cannot depreciate your primary but you can depreciate investment. Number two, are you saying that an investment property you want it to have bought for about 500,000? Is that 700 or so? Is that 500 than in 300, with a 20%?
Joseph:
I was talking in terms of the building basis. On the building basis, as you’re alluding to, is in California, this is maybe not true. But if you take 20% off of what you paid for it, and you’ll get to the building basis, and that line is kind of moving, we used to be really entrenched on 500,000, not $1 more, we wouldn’t model but nowadays, we’re refining our algorithms. So we will do buildings that are even more than $500,000, $600,000, $700,000.
Brett:
Building basis. So to clarify, if you bought it for 800, your building basis might be 650 or whatever?
Joseph:
Exactly.
Brett:
Okay, got it.
Joseph:
So I buy for a million and you take 200,000 off for land, now you got an $800,000 building basis. We could even do a revised modeling study on that $100,000. So it’s not necessarily going to cost you and there’s a lot of multifamilies out there around the United States that people are picking up for 600,000 or 700,000.
Brett:
So that makes a lot of sense. What does that average cost?
Joseph:
Brett:
Awesome. Now, back to let’s say someone is selling. I got this 15 unit property, it’s worth 3 million bucks, but I’m gonna be selling it here the next year. Why or why not use cost segregation study.
Joseph:
I personally will tell you because I deal with a lot of CFOs. The answer that we’ve all come up with is two years of a hold. There’s a concept called Depreciation Recapture because you’re using this expense and you’re reducing your income, when you sell the building for cash only, you have to pay some of that back 25% tax or depreciation recapture tax on the building. So unless you’re going to hold it for two years, or your IRR if I give you $1 In your IRR is 80% on that money, well then forget the two-year hold, but most people aren’t in that category. So what we say is look, if you’re not going to hold it for two years, I can take your money but we don’t want to, we don’t want you to pay for something where you probably it’s going to wash out if you sell it within it two years. So I suggest a two-year hold. People should think.
Brett:
Perfect. By the way, get with Joe, the cost specialist at ustagi.com.
Joseph:
Real quick though, one thing we missed bonus.
Brett:
Yes, talk bonus. Yes, go back into that. Go ahead, we got off track.
Joseph:
So here’s the deal. I’m in the Trump tax, I’ll just call the Trump tax bill. Bottom line, if you own a product, if you bought a property, on September 25 of 2017, it would qualify for a 100% Bonus. Now is that a big deal, it’s not a big deal. But it’s very nice because prior to bonus, what would happen is the way that that taking the 5, 7, 15, and 27 half-year property, which is the 5,7 and 15 are what we can accelerate, you basically would get a big chunk the year you did the study. Then you get trails because you have seven and 15-year property. So you’re not going to get it all the first year, you’re going to get most of it, and then 2,3,4,5, you’re going to get some more of the bang for your buck. But with the bonus depreciation at 100%. You’re going to get all of what we find in personal property and land improvements. The year that you do the study. So all of that 25% that you use suggested is an estimate you’ll get that all that that $2 million you get that all the tax or you do the study.
Brett:
That’s amazing and this is where your high-income earners’ cryptocurrency, millionaires, real estate millionaires, you’ve got to know and be executing on this because the bonus is set to start to wind down I believe. So next year, it’ll be what?
Joseph:
You know what people ask, but I’m so in the moment, I believe it’s going to graduate over four or five years, it’s going to graduate down. So in 2023, I think it’s going to be 80%.
Brett:
But the point is going right now is, it’s the best time to do it. So I want to shift into part of what we do. I’m curious about your take on this, as a tax professional with the cost segregation and the things that you’re doing here. So we specialize in something called a Deferred Sales Trust, not a Delaware Statutory Trust and a 1031 exchange. We have a deal where we just helped a cryptocurrency owner exit, she bought Bitcoin for about 50,000, we went to 50 million. We talked about the concept of tax flow versus cash flow. Part of why she never sold until she met us was because of this huge tax. So she started with 5 million, she lives in the Silicon Valley, or for a big Silicon Valley company. Now she’s retired from that, but she was able to exit this 5 million into the trust. Now, part of a cool thing that we can do is you can partner with a trust and you can go buy a business, you can go buy real estate, you can become active, all tax-deferred. So it’s kind of like a self-directed IRA. But what’s neat is you can get that new depreciation schedule on that asset of which you can get up to 80%. Personally, you can the way we structure it. But just talk about the concept of exit cryptocurrency diversify into like real estate, get a new depreciation schedule. By the way, let’s do a cost segregation study here. Let’s get a lot of this working for you. So I’m trying to combine these multiple things. So any thoughts on that? What questions would you have as a tax specialist?
Joseph:
That is going to be outside my area of expertise. But when eyes lit up when you describe that strategy. I think that is one hell of a strategy if you can capitalize on resetting your depreciation clock and getting your depreciation expense. Now that we’re in bonus, I mean, that is anybody who meets that profile should run and talk to you.
Brett:
Yeah, and honestly, we think it’s the Netflix of old blockbuster ways of doing things. By the way, to be honest, we think most 1031 exchanges, the old installment sales, they’re all blockbusters. Well, you guys are doing-especially with the bonus you guys are closer to Netflix. Right now when we think about that, we’re really like Netflix So you’re on our side so we cheer you on. But I’ve been in commercials my whole life. People’s brains explode, my brain exploded too. I learned about it Marcus and Millichap at the crash like part of the crash. He talked about how things shifted for you and everyone else. The same thing happened with us, we’re like, there’s got to be a better way. It took a while to do the deals and go through the I call the 10,000 hours of brain surgery, watching the surgeon do the surgeries and just keep putting people back together and become you become a believer. So our mission is to try to make these real and so we just did a deal in Alabama with $2.6 million business sale and he’s building 70 multifamily units tax-deferred ground up. He’s using it with the Deferred Sales Trust, otherwise, he couldn’t have done it. You can’t 1031 a business, you can’t 1031 Crypto, you can’t 1031 a primary home, we did an $8.3 million primary home sale in Palo Alto, 7.9 and Santa Cruz. But the point is, hopefully, everyone’s being encouraged here to challenge the status quo. Don’t just take what your CPA, who may be dealing with blockbusters for these Netflix types of strategies, and you go to capitalgainstaxsolutions.com to learn more about that. That being said, are you ready for lightning round?
Joseph:
Yes.
Brett:
All right. Joe, if you could go back to your 25-year-old self what’s the one golden nugget make sure to tell yourself to do?
Joseph:
Brush my teeth. No. Honesty, integrity.
Brett:
Excellent. Number two, what’s the number one book you’ve recommended the most or given in the past year?
Joseph:
Think and Grow Rich. I’m telling you. I’m an old dog. But that is I think any young man out there. That’s the book I tell them to read first.
Brett:
Excellent. What are you most curious about right now?
Joseph:
Politics.
Brett:
That’s a good one. Next question, what’s the number one leadership quote or theme that you strive to live by? A quote or theme doesn’t have to be exact. It could be an inspirational movie or an inspirational book. It could be a figure like Winston Churchill.
Joseph:
Winston Churchill is a good one.
Brett:
Okay, go check that guy out. The next one would be this after all your success helping all the people you’ve helped? How do you stay centered? What’s the one habit you try to practice daily to stay centered in your values and stay encouraged to charge for to reach new heights?
Joseph:
Pay attention and stay focused on friends and family.
Brett:
Joe, I want to thank you for being on the show. I want to thank you for your sense of humor. I came out on the show and it was fun, and you’re right and made a subject of cost segregation and taxes and us geeking out about that. I think our listeners really appreciate it. I sure appreciate it. So I encourage you to keep using that gift to help people create and preserve more wealth. For our listeners who want to reach out and get with you right now for our classic study. Would you mind one last time? What’s the best place for them to find you?
Joseph:
Brett:
Excellent. Thanks, Joe, for being on the show.
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About Joseph Viery
Joseph Viery launched USTAGI with the purpose of offering high-quality cost segregation research. He has assisted property owners to defer or eliminate millions of dollars in income taxes as a Cost Segregation Professional, CSP, by utilizing IRS-compliant cost segregation studies. Joseph has completed thousands of cost segregation studies for clients in a variety of industries, ranging from $500,000,000 commercial structures to $50,000 single-family houses, since becoming a CSP in 2007. He speaks at workshops all over the country and is a frequent guest on industry podcasts. He has a natural capacity to translate complex sets of rules into simple themes.
