The Book on Tax Strategies for the Savvy Real Estate Investor: Review (2026)

Amanda Han and Matthew MacFarland are CPAs who invest, and the book's real service is teaching you what to ask your own accountant rather than pretending you can replace one. That framing is right. The problem is that it was published in 2016, and the tax code it describes has been rewritten twice since.

Read it for the concepts. Do not read it for the numbers.

Snapshot	Details
Authors	Amanda Han and Matthew MacFarland, CPAs
Publisher	BiggerPockets Publishing
First published	2016
Best for	Investors who do not yet know what questions to ask a CPA
Critical caveat	Predates the 2017 TCJA and the 2025 OBBBA

What it does well

It reframes tax as a strategy, not a filing. The book's opening argument — that the return you file in April is determined by decisions you made the previous March, and that most investors engage a CPA far too late to change anything — is correct and is the reason to read it.

It explains depreciation properly. Residential rental property depreciated over 27.5 years, the split between land and improvements, and why depreciation is the deduction that makes leveraged real estate tax-advantaged in a way almost nothing else is. The rental depreciation calculator runs the same math.

It is honest about recapture. Many investors discover depreciation recapture at sale. The book covers it up front, which is more than most content in this space manages. Depreciation recapture explained goes further.

Real estate professional status is explained without hype. REPS — the test that lets qualifying taxpayers use rental losses against ordinary income — is the highest-value provision in the book, and the authors are appropriately clear that the hour requirements are strict and that the IRS litigates them. For the current tests see real estate professional status requirements, and for what REPS is an exception to, the passive activity loss rules.

It tells you to hire someone. Repeatedly. For a book that could have sold itself as a DIY substitute, the insistence on working with a professional who understands real estate is a mark of good faith.

What is now wrong

This is the section that matters, and it is why the book cannot be your only tax reading.

It predates the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act entirely. TCJA introduced the Section 199A qualified business income deduction, capped state and local tax deductions, changed entity-level maths substantially, and altered the calculus on how rental activity should be structured. None of it is in here.

Bonus depreciation is completely out of date. This is the big one. TCJA raised bonus depreciation to 100%, then scheduled it to phase down. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed in July 2025, restored 100% bonus depreciation permanently for qualifying property acquired after 19 January 2025. The book's treatment describes neither regime. Since bonus depreciation is what makes a cost segregation study worth paying for, the chapter that should be the most valuable in 2026 is the one most likely to mislead you. See the IRS guidance on the amended first-year depreciation deduction for the current rules, and cost segregation vs bonus depreciation for how the two interact now.

The short-term rental treatment is thin. The STR material participation route — which lets some short-term rental losses avoid passive treatment without meeting the full REPS test — has become one of the most-used strategies among investors since publication, and gets far less attention here than its current popularity warrants.

Entity advice is generic by necessity. LLC and S-corp guidance is federal and high-level; the state-level cost and filing differences are where the real decision lives. LLC formation and annual costs by state covers what the book cannot.

Who should read it

• Investors with one to five properties who have never had a tax conversation beyond handing over a shoebox.
• Anyone about to interview a CPA, who needs enough vocabulary to tell a real estate specialist from a generalist.
• Investors who suspect they are missing deductions and want a checklist of what to raise.

Who should skip it

• If you already work with a real estate CPA. You are paying someone to know this, and to know the current version of it.
• If you want a reference. Every Landlord's Tax Deduction Guide is updated annually and is the better desk reference for exactly this reason.
• If your situation is complicated. Multiple entities, syndications, cross-state holdings or a pending sale all exceed what a 2016 primer can safely address.

What to read next

• Every Landlord's Tax Deduction Guide — annually revised, and the one to own if you buy only one tax book.
• Loopholes of Real Estate — Garrett Sutton on the entity and asset-protection side.
• Best real estate tax books — how this fits against the alternatives.

Final take

A good introduction that has been overtaken by events. The framing — plan ahead, hire a specialist, understand depreciation — is durable and worth the read. Every specific figure, threshold and bonus depreciation rule in it is now wrong, and in a way that could cost you real money if you act on it. Treat it as a list of questions for your CPA, not a set of answers.

This is general information, not tax advice. Tax treatment depends on your circumstances and on rules that change; confirm anything consequential with a qualified professional.

This review is part of the best real estate investing books library — 40+ titles ranked by the decision in front of you.