Taxes

How Property Taxes Can Impact Your Mortgage Payment

When buying a home, property taxes are one of the expenses that can make a significant difference in your monthly payment. Do you know how much you might pay for property taxes in your state or local area?

When applying for a mortgage, you’ll see one of two acronyms in your paperwork – P&I or PITI – depending on how you’re including your taxes in your mortgage payment.

P&I stands for Principal and Interest, and both are parts of your monthly mortgage payment that go toward paying off the loan you borrow. PITI stands for Principal, Interest, Taxes, and Insurance, and they’re all important factors to calculate when you want to determine...

When people are considering a move from another state or country to South Carolina, one of the questions they ask is what the tax rates are in the state.

Sales tax (called VAT or value-added tax in some places) is charged on consumption of goods (and only SOME services). 

In South Carolina, the basic sales tax rate is 6%. In addition municipalities have the right to add local municipal taxes, so the total sales tax varies by city, and will range from 6% to 9%.

Here are the total sales tax for the main cities in SC (source: https://www.avalara.com/taxrates/en/state-rates/south-carolina.html)

What is Taxable?

Services in South Carolina are gene...

Tax Reform & Housing: A Reference Guide
 

Disclaimer: This guide is not meant to be a resource for tax advice but instead a resource for basic information concerning only certain aspects of the new tax code and how they may impact the real estate market. You should get tax advice from your accountant or tax preparer who will explain how the entire tax code will affect your personal return. 

This information became useful immediately after the new tax code became law. Some of the information may be revised as the analysis of the new law evolves.

When the tax code was originally being overhauled by the House and the Senate, there were three major proposals being considered that would h...

Is the Capital Gain Tax Preventing You From Selling?

Do you own an investment property that has appreciated nicely (thank you very much) but you are hesitant to sell it because of the Capital Gains Tax liability it would generate?

Would you like to know HOW you can defer the Capital Gains Tax without interest or penalty?

Take advantage of this HOT SELLER'S MARKET!

Call us or text us on 843-900-0155 to find out more about TWO tax deferment strategies that you may be able to use for better estate planning and tax deferral!

Find out HOW MUCH your property is worth with this easy, free online market value estimator!

How to Estimate Property Taxes for New Construction Homes

The current property tax paid on new construction homes is not an accurate estimate of what a buyer will end up paying, since the tax amount that appears on the public record is just for the LAND, without the improvements

Once a county issues the Certificate of Occupancy and registers the Deed in the buyer's name, they know there what improvements were built on that particular lot, and the assessed value will now be re-assessed to the purchase price for property tax assessment.

If you are or are thinking of building a new home, and are interested in ESTIMATING how much property tax you will pay in your second year, visit this li...

Tax-Free Weekend Coming Up August 7th-9th

​The popular Sales Tax Holiday weekend in South Carolina will begin Friday, August 7 at 12:01 a.m. and end Sunday, August 9 at midnight.

We recently received from a couple of our clients an "alarming" email warning that the Obama Health Plan was imposing a "secret" 3.8% surcharge on the sale of homes. So we decided to do some research. Here is the answer received from Cashion Drolet, Sr. VP of Government Affairs for the South Carolina Association of REALTORS®:

"As part of the health care reform package that was passed in 2010, there are a number of tax increases included as pay-for provisions.  One of those taxes is the 3.8% medicaid surtax on investment income beginning in 2013 (including capital gains, rents, dividends, etc.). Note that Capital Gains do come from investment sale or transfer of real estate. The Medicaid ...