Could I buy a home through my business?
Answers
265 points
fuzball answered 10 months ago …
The way I have understand it - yes, they can. It may be used as a home or as a retreat, for instance, for company officers or visiting business contacts. They may even buy larger properties and use them as places of recreation for workers, too, as a sort of employment perk. I do suppose a company would have to undergo the routene income/credit qualification rules much like any other buyer.
However, in the present messed up economic climate, much new regulation should be expected by the panic stricken Admin that will set new rules for, at least, public owned companies on how they spend their stockholders money - big new rules. A privately owned company, I don't know.
368 points
ads answered 10 months ago …
Yes you can. However you may need to justify the purchase from an accounting standpoint (as fuzball suggested some options there). If you own the business as a privately held company that you control then you can pretty much do what you want, but may not be able to write off the costs if you can not justify it from an accounting standpoint, thus some care should be taken to make sure that it is the best way to proceed (and which would be heavily dependent on the type of business that you operate). Likewise if you are managing a publicly traded company then you need to do what is in the best interest of the stockholders, in which case such a purchase would be more difficult to justify unless it did serve some special business purpose. And as fuzball also suggested, if it is being purchased with a mortgage then the business would still need to go through the approval process based off of the credit rating and income for the business (similar to a typical homeowner would based off of their credit rating and income vs. expenses).
Thus without more details it is hard to provide a really good answer to this one. But I also would not recomend providing too many details of your personal business here anyways so your best bet would be to talk to a trusted accountant.
2082 points
alanj answered 10 months ago …
Yes. Large Corp's do it. But, for example, if you are a resident of FL more than 6 months out of the year and this is your primary home located in FL you get what is called "Homestead Exemption". This is a huge discount off of the accessed value for tax purposes. For the longest time it was a deduction of $25,000. I believe that figure has increased some. If you buy through your business you might not be able to take that deduction. Other states may have similar programs. Before buying that home find out if your state has a similar program and what it will allow as far as deductions for homes through a business. Your local taxing authority (tax collectors office) should know. If this is not your primary home then buying through your business may be advantagous. I would suggest talking with a tax advisor first.
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2222 points
readytoretire answered 10 months ago …
The answer is yes. If you intend to live in it yourself, I would recommend talking with a good accountant before buying it. Unless the company that buys the house is a LLC or a Sub S (these type entities pass the tax through to the owners), you will have to account for the value of staying in the house come tax time. And that leaves the door open for someone (auditor) to question the real value and decide that you under-reported income (similar to Daschle and the car service he used but didn't report).
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