Tax Advice for US Real Estate Investments

Hello,

I am an Australian living in Kansas. We own and control construction companies, as well as invest in rental houses as well as apartment buildings.I would love to hear any advice for a friend of mine in Australia who wants to invest in the US.I have done a lot of reading and any comments on setting up a Trust in Australia and then the procedure to get it registered here would be really appreciated.We have our own LLC with which we do all our property purchases etc and I can offer just my personal experiences with foreclosure buying, REO and things like that. I am not an accountant but I do all our bookwork, so have a good knowledge of taxes etc here.I do use a CPA for final taxes of course and my partner is an attorney here.

If there are any questions I could help you with I will to the best of my ability :)  I dont expect or want any financial gains from this post..just the knowledge on how to help my buddy invest his money and where I might find the right tools to get him set up.

Thank you,
Jean

~~My comments are purely my opinion,based on "hands on" experience in the property investing market. I hope that what I write helps future investors be successful in their investing ventures ~~~

Is the australian trust for income splitting purposes?  Assume that it is not for Asset protection as you can get that through a multiple member LLC in the US.

Personally, I wouldnt setup an australian trust for my US property investment.  Its only my wife and I so im not worried about the possibility of family trust distns at the moment.  Trust losses (if by chance you made them) are trapped in the trust to only be offset against future income.  I know the purpose of investing in US property is to positive gear but this wont always happen - say you have alot of repairs for example in a particular year.

My $0.02 worth...