The Taxman Cometh: REIT Tax Myths
- With tax season (unfortunately) upon us, we address some of the most common questions and respond to some of the outright myths that we hear related to REITs and taxes.
- Functionally, from a tax reporting perspective, an investor’s experience with REITs shouldn’t be any different than a typical dividend-paying stock. REITs report using the standard 1099-DIV, not a K-1.
- REIT investors were big winners from recent tax reform. Due to the new 20% QBI deduction, REITs are now essentially on par with typical qualified-dividend-paying companies when held in taxable accounts.
- REIT investors got another win last year. The IRS amended an initially ambiguous regulation to allow ETFs and other REIT-owning funds to pass-through the QBI deduction to their shareholders.
- At the company level, REITs are able to retain significantly more capital than is commonly believed, which has been a primary source of their under-appreciated historical record of strong growth.
