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Private markets: how the tax rules work

Private funds, direct startup equity, opportunity funds, and exchanged real estate each carry statutory tests and dated deadlines. Each panel below states the rule and computes it against figures you enter. Every result is a computation under stated assumptions, not a recommendation, and eligibility itself is never assumed.

Holdings on file

Holding Type Held in Committed Called Uncalled Stated value Acquired Calculate
Alto Robotics Direct startup equity Taxable / individual $0 $0 $0 $6,400,000 2026-02-01 1202
Cascade Opportunity Fund II Qualified opportunity fund Taxable / individual $0 $1,200,000 $-1,200,000 $1,310,000 QOF
Meridian Ventures VI Venture capital fund Taxable / individual $1,000,000 $420,000 $580,000 $505,000 2024-09-15
Ridgeline Credit II Private credit fund Self-directed IRA $500,000 $500,000 $0 $548,000 2023-06-01 UBTI

Findings from the latest review

Strategies

Qualified small business stock (section 1202)

Gain on original-issue stock in a small C corporation can be excluded from federal income once a holding period is met. OBBBA added a tiered exclusion for stock acquired after July 4 2025 and raised the per-issuer cap.

How the rule works
  • Stock acquired after July 4 2025 excludes 50% at three years, 75% at four, and 100% at five. Stock acquired on or before that date keeps the five-year period and the 100% exclusion.
  • The per-issuer cap is the greater of $15 million ($10 million under the older rules) and ten times adjusted basis.
  • The cap limits the gain taken into account, and the exclusion percentage applies to that capped amount afterward.
  • Eligible gain the tier does not exclude is section 1202 gain, taxed at 28%. Gain above the cap is long-term capital gain at the ordinary capital rate.
  • Section 1045 allows a rollover into replacement stock within 60 days when the stock was held at least six months, with no dollar cap.
Not modeled here
  • Eligibility itself: domestic C corporation status, original issuance, the 80% active-business test, the excluded trades and businesses, and the redemption rules.
  • Any alternative minimum tax effect on partially excluded gain.
  • Stacking the per-issuer cap across non-grantor trusts.
Qualified opportunity fund

Capital gain rolled into an opportunity fund is deferred, picks up a basis step-up at five years, and after ten years an election excludes the fund's own appreciation. OBBBA made the programme permanent on a rolling clock.

How the rule works
  • Gains invested after 2026 run on a rolling five-year deferral: the gain is recognized five years on, or on an earlier sale.
  • The five-year basis step-up is 10% of the deferred gain, or 30% for a qualified rural opportunity fund.
  • Gains invested on or before 2026 are recognized on December 31 2026, and investments made after 2021 reach no step-up at all.
  • After ten years, a fair-market-value election excludes appreciation earned after the investment, through a thirty-year outer limit.
  • Deferral moves when the tax is paid. The step-up is the only part of the deferral leg that changes the amount.
Not modeled here
  • The rates in force in the recognition year, which the calculation cannot know. The household's current rates are used.
  • Fund-level compliance: the 90% asset test, substantial improvement, and the rural designation itself.
  • The additional 5% step-up for investments made before 2020.
Carried interest (section 1061)

A carried interest held three years or less has its long-term capital gain treated as short-term, which moves it from the capital rate to the ordinary rate.

How the rule works
  • The test is more than three years. A disposition on the three-year anniversary itself is still recharacterized.
  • The cost is the gap between the ordinary rate and the long-term rate on the recharacterized amount.
  • The 3.8% net investment income tax applies to short-term and long-term gain alike, so it does not widen the gap.
  • Section 1061 does not reach an interest held by a C corporation.
Not modeled here
  • The recharacterization computation itself: the one-year versus three-year distributive share, lookthrough, and related-party transfer rules.
  • Section 1231 gain from real property, qualified dividends, section 1256 contracts, and allocations on invested capital, all outside section 1061.
  • Bracket crossing: one ordinary rate is applied to the whole amount.
Section 1031 exchange

An exchange of investment real estate defers the gain and the depreciation recapture into the replacement property, on two clocks that do not extend.

How the rule works
  • Replacement property is identified within 45 days and the exchange closes within 180 days of the relinquished closing.
  • The 180-day period is itself cut short by the unextended return due date. Extending that return restores the full period.
  • Unrecaptured section 1250 gain is taxed at the lower of 25% and the ordinary rate, so 25% is a ceiling rather than a rate.
  • Cash boot and any equity not carried into the replacement are recognized, recapture first.
  • The deferred gain rides forward in the basis of the replacement property.
Not modeled here
  • Section 1245 recapture on personal-property components, which is ordinary income and is not sheltered by a real-property exchange.
  • State clawback regimes that tax the deferred gain when a replacement property leaves the state.
  • Related-party rules and the identification limits (three-property, 200%).
UBTI and UDFI in a retirement account

A leveraged private fund held inside an IRA can generate unrelated business taxable income, which is taxed at trust rates and paid out of the account.

How the rule works
  • At $1,000 or more of gross unrelated business taxable income the account files Form 990-T. The threshold is measured on the gross figure.
  • The same $1,000 is also a specific deduction, so tax starts on the first dollar above it rather than on the whole amount.
  • Debt-financed income is unrelated business taxable income in proportion to the debt, unless the fund blocks it at the entity level.
  • Trust rates are compressed: the top rate arrives at roughly $16,000 of taxable income.
  • In a Roth account the tax is paid out of a balance whose qualified distributions are otherwise free of tax.
Not modeled here
  • The debt-financed percentage computation: average acquisition indebtedness over average adjusted basis, with the twelve-month lookback.
  • State filing obligations on unrelated business income.
  • The section 514(c)(9) exception, which reaches qualified pension trusts rather than IRAs.

Educational modeling only. These rules turn on statutory tests that a household's own records cannot settle, and the figures assume those tests are met. Amounts, dates, and eligibility are for confirmation with a qualified tax professional before any filing position is taken.