Carl
Level 15

Investors & landlords

Be careful hare. Some states and many localities assess a "tangible property tax" each and every year on non-real estate equipment that is used to produce income. At best, your furniture and equipment is depreciated over 5 years. The tangible property tax if imposed, negates any savings you may realize by doing this too. On top of that, when you sell or otherwise dispose of those assets, you are required by law to recapture all depreciation taken and pay taxes on it in the year of disposition.

The main reason I wouldn't waste my time with this, is because it is extremely rare for residential rental property to produce taxable income anyway. Espeically if there's a mortgage on the property.

When you add up the mortgage interest deductions, property tax deduction, insurance deduction and the depreciation you're required to take by law, you'll find that all those deductions by themselves will exceed the rental income for the year.  Add to that your other allowed rental expenses (repairs, cleaning, maintenance, etc) and you're practically guaranteed to "never" have a taxable profit on residential rental real estate.

So capitalizing other non-real estate assets has absolutely no positive impact what-so-ever on your tax liability.  But it *will* negatively impact your tax liability in the tax year you sell or otherwise dispose of the property.