Sean Lichterman, a distinguished expert in cost segregation with a passion for maximizing value and minimizing tax burdens. With a proven track record in the industry, Sean brings a wealth of experience and unmatched professionalism to every project undertaken. Coming from a pedigree of a Chicago city developer and residential flippers, Sean’s experience in the commercial real estate industry is firsthand. Specializing in Cost Segregation, he has helped numerous businesses uncover substantial tax benefits, resulting in increased profitability and financial success.
Known for his meticulous attention to detail and client-centric approach, Sean is committed to delivering tailored solutions that align with each client’s unique needs. Trust Sean to guide you through the complexities of cost segregation, unlocking hidden opportunities for your properties.
Episode Highlights Here:
Pierce
Yeah, absolutely, man. So why don’t you guys just give the audience a brief background on your guys’ stuff.
Sean
Yeah, so my background starts in healthcare and tech sales. As I’ve been working with business owners, my dad’s been in cost sag for decades, I’ve actually teared up to some of my business owners and clients when I noticed that they purchased new properties, Hey, have you run a cost analysis? The answer was no. You may qualify for accelerated depreciation. Let me get my father involved, we’ll run a quick estimate, see if this makes sense for you. Now I’ve taken more of a full time role. The industry is just taking off like gangbusters. It’s great to work in the quote unquote family business with my dad, you know, being boss and father at the same time. But it’s very fulfilling, to be able to work with clients to be able to help them with their financial goals and ultimately just create generational wealth.
Len
For those of you that can’t tell, I’m the dad in this twosome. My background is accounting, I worked, but a dozen years in corporate accounting for Fortune 100 type companies. From there, I migrated into real estate, I actually built single family homes for several years, got involved in rental property quite, quite heavily. And over the last 25 years or so I’ve I’m involved in 40 or 50, unlimited real estate, limited partnership. Investments. I’ve been affiliated with cost segregation services as our company CSSI for about a dozen years now and am happy to merge our resources with Sean as well to kind of help bring me into the 21st century in terms of technology.
Pierce
Yeah, no, absolutely. So tell me a little bit about one or two of your guys’ spiritual gifts, strengths. You know, whatever superpowers you want to call them that have led you to be successful today.
Sean
Yeah, I would say one of the gifts was bestowed to me, you know, I’ve been very fortunate to have great leaders in my life, you know, my dad being one of them. My grandfather, actually my great grandfather, taught me the art of investing and saving early on, I mean, picture an eight year old with birthday cards, taking that money, putting half of it in a CD and the other half asking my dad how to open up a Charles Schwab account. So having that knowledge early on is being able, it’s been a great gift for myself, and also to give that knowledge back to friends, clients, family. And even now, I’m very fulfilled and what we do today, and be able to advise property owners, business owners and how to maximize their tax benefits and ultimately create that generational wealth. I’m sure we’ll get into that in more detail on the show here. But yeah, definitely very grateful from our background, and then what we’re able to do day in and day out.
Len
And most grateful and gratifying for myself is to be able to work alongside my son putting out the word and cost segregation. Many years ago, I taught the law of attraction business classes at the local college. And what I found most gratifying from that was students to come and coming up to me afterwards saying, you’ve made that you’ve been very difficult subject matter easy to understand and comprehend. And I like to try to transfer that same expertise and in defining and inflating costs or negation. It’s the most gratifying to me as I have a client who’s never heard the term whatsoever, and after five or 10 minute chat with them, they’ve got a basic understanding of what, what it means and what sort of benefits and apply. So I like to keep things simple. kind of speak to the lowest common denominator of my audience so that when they fully understand and grasp what it is that we do,
Pierce
yeah, that’s a super important skill. So, tell me a little bit about what Cost Segregation is. When’s it useful? When’s, when’s it not?
Len
Yeah, let me let me jump in on that. In terms of what it is, Cost Segregation is nothing more than a form of accelerated depreciation. As some of your audience may or may not know, when you purchase a commercial property, you have to depreciate it over a 39 year timeframe, or 27 and a half years if people live in the property, if it’s a multifamily residential type property. Going back about 20 years, there were a couple of court cases involving Walgreens and health, health health Corporation of America. And they kind of argued the point with the IRS saying, it’s unfair to us to have to depreciate this entire building this entire structure over 39 years, when we know there’s various components within that building that just aren’t going to last 39 years, things like carpeting, things like molding on the wall, so the parking last typically only last 15 years. So that’s what kind of led to the concept of cost segregation and the IRS had approved. The preferred method is an engineered approach whereby we go into the asset and we break out the components that have lesser year likes, typically a five year lifespan seven year and 15 year. And the concept of the Cost Segregation is it allows you to take those lesser life assets, and bunch them together and have these last handful of years, we can actually take that in the form of a write off in something called a bonus depreciation. So it’s a form of accelerated depreciation fully accepted and fully acknowledged by the IRS. There’s about 500 pages on the tax code describing it. But it allows the the investor to take the depreciation on a front end, as opposed to spreading it over 39 years, the benefit to them is additional cash flow
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About Sean Lichterman
Sean Lichterman, a distinguished expert in cost segregation with a passion for maximizing value and minimizing tax burdens. With a proven track record in the industry, Sean brings a wealth of experience and unmatched professionalism to every project undertaken. Coming from a pedigree of a Chicago city developer and residential flippers, Sean’s experience in the commercial real estate industry is firsthand. Specializing in Cost Segregation, he has helped numerous businesses uncover substantial tax benefits, resulting in increased profitability and financial success. Known for his meticulous attention to detail and client-centric approach, Sean is committed to delivering tailored solutions that align with each client’s unique needs. Trust Sean to guide you through the complexities of cost segregation, unlocking hidden opportunities for your properties.
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