Posted Friday, October 2, 2026
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A Specialized Tax Team for Complex Tax Situations
At WCG CPAs & Advisors we have a saying: stay in your lane. Our tax team is built around Pods, small groups of tax professionals led by a seasoned tax manager or partner. The Rental Expert & Tax Strategist Pod, or RETS around the water cooler, focuses on advanced tax strategy and rental property tax, because nobody can be the expert on everything.
RETS is a dedicated group of about twelve tax professionals inside a firm of more than 100. Concentrating that expertise is the point. It is easier and smarter to hyper-train twelve people on advanced tax strategy and rental property taxation than to ask every generalist to keep pace with a fast-moving, promoter-driven landscape. Divide and conquer sort of thing.
Rental Expert comes first in the acronym, but RETS is a team of tax strategists who are also rental experts. The order of the letters is history, not priority. Besides, TSRE doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.
Tax Strategy for High Income Earners
Most RETS conversations start the same way. Someone looks at last year’s tax return, sees a large tax bill, and wants to know what can legitimately be done about it. Or they are staring at some paper from HR that reads, “Hey, we’re going to drop a bunch of RSUs on your next check, withhold zero taxes, and wish you best of luck on April 15. Love, The People Department.” Ok, not totally true. They are obligated to withhold at least 22%, but you get the idea.
Stress-Testing Advanced Tax Strategies
Once the foundational moves are made, reducing taxes further takes-
- money and / or debt tolerance,
- effort as in participation in the investment (with some exceptions, like working interest in oil and gas), and
- investment risk,
usually in combination.
The Advanced Tax Strategies landscape is crowded with pitch decks for syndicates, structured equipment leasing, discounted Roth conversions and niche assets, and many are oversold. WCG takes no commissions, and RETS replaces promoter math with real math by testing each strategy against our 3-Legged Stool: your actual cash, effort and risk tolerance.
For example, our Aspen Tax Strategy Series moves through three sessions (Foundation, Exploration and Execution) and ends with a written execution blueprint.
High Income Strategies
W-2 wages are the hardest income to shelter. The levers tend to be timing and structure: Roth conversions in the right year, equity compensation and liquidity event planning, charitable bunching like using a DAF, and capital gain timing along with profit or gain harvesting. Yawn. When those are exhausted, the conversation usually turns to investments that generate non-passive losses. Our Tax Strategies for High W-2 Earners article covers the landscape.
Business Owner Strategies
WCG as a whole was built around small business owners, so many of these strategies are handled by your primary Tax Pod. The foundation includes reasonable S Corp salary, retirement plan design, the pass-through entity tax election, an accountable plan reimbursement program and family payroll such as adding spouse or children to payroll. RETS gets involved when the owner also invests, such as renting a building to their own company or pairing business profit with depreciation under the Excess Business Loss limit of IRC Section 461(l).
Sidebar: The EBL issue is a big one for W-2 earners since it limits how much of your business loss from rentals, equipment leasing, etc. can be deducted with the remainder being rolled to next year. On the contrary, if your primary source of income is business income, losses generated by sound tax strategies are netted against your business profits. This can really crank up the efficacy of a good tax strategy.
Real Estate Strategies
Real estate investors make up the largest share of RETS work. Cost segregation, real estate professional status, the short-term rental loophole, 1031 exchanges and syndicate evaluation all live here. Each depends on two questions: how large is the tax deduction, and can you use it this year? Or does it end up in passive loss purgatory only to be seen again when you sell or have eventual rental profits.
Short-Term Rentals and Non-Passive Losses
Short-term rentals, vacation rentals and vacation home rentals start from a different place. Under Treas. Reg. 1.469-1T(e)(3)(ii)(A), an activity involving property with an average period of customer use of seven days or less is not treated as a rental activity for the passive activity rules. Here is a snippet of the regulation-
(3) Rental activity—(i) In general. Except as otherwise provided in this paragraph (e)(3), an activity is a rental activity for a taxable year if—
(A) During such taxable year, tangible property held in connection with the activity is used by customers or held for use by customers
(ii) Exceptions. For purposes of this paragraph (e)(3), an activity involving the use of tangible property is not a rental activity for a taxable year if for such taxable year—
(A) The average period of customer use for such property is seven days or less;
That is only the first gate. The activity is still passive unless you materially participate under Treas. Reg. 1.469-5T(a). Clear both gates and the losses, including accelerated depreciation, are non-passive and can offset W-2 wages and business income on your tax return.
Meet the Rental Expert & Tax Strategist Pod
RETS is led by Ethan Summers, CPA, a Senior Tax Manager for WCG. All RETS Podmates are licensed CPAs, Enrolled Agents or Chartered Accountants (for our amazing India team). The Pod has two general roles.
Tax Strategist Role
Tax Strategists are the most senior client-facing tax role at WCG outside of Partner, and they lead Tax Strategy Sessions, the Aspen Tax Strategy Series and advanced discovery meetings.
RETS Tax Strategists generally prepare rental activity schedules from January through April, then turn their full attention to tax strategy from May through December. The person modeling your STR purchase in August works on rental reporting every spring, so strategy and tax return stay connected.
Tax Accountant Role
Tax Accountant RoleOur Tax Accountants, including Tax Supervisors, focus on the technical depth of rental property tax: asset setups, cost segregation inputs and passive activity tracking. They don’t stop there. They are also subject matter experts in car washes, RV parks, gas stations, structured equipment leasing, yacht and aircraft leasing, and oil and gas working interests, among other advanced tax strategy investments. On the more exotic strategies, they help you understand what material participation requires and whether your facts can meet it.
The RETS Pod’s technical foundation is our book I Just Got A Rental, What Do I Do? and much of WCG’s tax strategy content, all written by Jason Watson, CPA, Partner and CEO, and a real estate investor since 1997. Many RETS members own rental property themselves, so they speak your love language like a fellow investor and not just an advisor.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the RETS Pod?
RETS stands for Rental Expert & Tax Strategist Pod, a dedicated group of about twelve WCG tax professionals specializing in advanced tax strategy, with deep expertise in rental property tax. Every member is a licensed CPA, Enrolled Agent or Chartered Accountant.
Is RETS a real estate team or a tax strategy team?
Both, but tax strategy comes first. Rental property appears in so many tax strategies because of accelerated depreciation, so the team needs expertise in both.
Do I need a CPA who specializes in rental properties?
Not every rental property owner does, and straightforward rental reporting can be handled by a competent tax professional. A real estate investor CPA or rental property CPA becomes more valuable when you add cost segregation, material participation, real estate professional status, short-term rentals, conversions, multi-state ownership, 1031 exchanges or significant passive losses.
Who should work with RETS?
Business owners, high W-2 earners and real estate investors looking at advanced tax strategies such as cost segregation, short-term rentals, niche assets or a liquidity event. Straightforward tax situations stay with your primary Pod.
How does WCG evaluate an advanced tax strategy?
RETS tests every strategy against our 3-Legged Stool of cash/debt, effort and investment risk tolerance, then models passive activity rules, the Excess Business Loss limit and recapture on exit. WCG takes no commissions, so the analysis stays objective.
Why can short-term rental losses be non-passive?
Property with an average period of customer use of seven days or less is not treated as a rental activity under Treas. Reg. 1.469-1T(e)(3)(ii)(A). If you also materially participate, the losses are non-passive and can offset W-2 wages and business income. The rule applies to tangible property generally, so it can reach bicycles, heavy equipment or airplanes or boats or whatever you can rent. However, and as an early warning, heavy equipment rarely clears both gates. See our Two-Gate Trap blog post.
Why can’t my long-term rental losses offset my W-2 income?
Long-term rental losses are generally passive under IRC Section 469. The $25,000 allowance phases out between $100,000 and $150,000 of modified adjusted gross income, and real estate professional status is hard to meet with a full-time job.
Does RETS only work with rental properties?
No. On the real estate side, RETS works with long-term rentals, conversions, cost segregation, 1031 exchanges and multi-state ownership. Beyond real estate, the team handles oil and gas working interests, structured equipment leasing, yacht and aircraft leasing, and niche assets such as car washes, RV parks and gas stations. RETS also works on equity compensation and liquidity event planning, multi-year Roth conversions, Excess Business Loss planning for business owners, and stress-testing promoter strategies like syndicates, captive insurance, conservation easements and deferred sales trusts.
Does RETS prepare my tax return?
RETS prepares rental activity schedules, then your primary Pod completes the tax return. For real estate holding partnerships and simpler individual tax returns built around rental activity, RETS handles the preparation from start to finish. For example, if you have 10 rentals and a W-2 with some mortgage interest, RETS prepares that tax return soup to nuts, and your primary Tax Pod reviews and delivers it.
How do I get RETS involved in creating a tax strategy for me?
Start with a complimentary 20-minute discovery meeting with our Client Acquisition Team, or book a $250 Partner Discovery Meeting to go deeper first. Existing clients can ask their Client Manager to bring RETS into their next Tax Strategy Session.
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