Quick answers, plainly stated.
Common questions from CPAs, EAs, and tax strategists. Anything else, write to hello@unlevered.io.
What it is, plainly.
An engineered analysis that moves part of a building’s basis from the 27.5- or 39-year shell into 5-, 7-, and 15-year MACRS classes. The result is a much larger first-year deduction — and for property placed in service after January 19, 2025, 100% bonus depreciation on the short-life share.
Traditional cost seg means routing your client to an outside engineering firm and weeks of back-and-forth. On Unlevered you add the client; we handle intake, engineering, and delivery.
Every study clears an engineered review pass before release: classifications checked against documents and photos, every dollar traced to a cited source. The audit trail records who reviewed, when, and the exact engine run.
No — deliberately. Unlevered prepares and signs the study, and your firm is credited on every client surface. Your client sees you brought in a specialist who stands behind the work; you stay the sole return preparer.
One fee, billed to the owner.
The only fee is per delivered study, billed to the property owner: $5,000 for a single-unit property, $10,000 for multifamily (current rates on the partners page). Drafts and estimates cost nothing.
Nothing. Firm access is free — applications are reviewed and approved by hand. No platform fee, no seat fee, no per-study charge to the firm. Participating firms can opt into a revenue share, disclosed in the client’s engagement letter.
The owner pays half on engagement, half at delivery. Cancel any time before delivery at no charge; once a study is delivered and signed, the fee is non-refundable.
How defensible is the output?
Yes. The methodology follows the IRS Cost Segregation Audit Techniques Guide, Pub. 946 MACRS, and current bonus depreciation law. Every allocation traces to a citation embedded in the study.
Unlevered signs every study as the preparer of the cost segregation study, after an engineered review pass and a human review. Your firm remains the sole tax return preparer.
A hash-locked log of every engine run, classification decision, citation, and review event — downloadable alongside the study.
No. We don’t represent clients before the IRS. You get methodology calibrated to IRS standards, the engineered review, and a complete audit trail; representation stays with your firm.
Where the data lives.
Primary data in US-East (Supabase Pro). Encrypted at rest with AES-256. Encrypted in transit with TLS 1.3. No data leaves the United States.
Only your firm’s login. Row-level security defaults to deny — nobody outside your workspace sees client data. Unlevered’s review team sees studies at review; staff otherwise touch a workspace only with explicit support access.
Yes — at /legal/dpa, with the subprocessor list. We notify you when subprocessors change.
How a study actually runs.
From complete client documents and a signed engagement, 24 hours to delivery. Your side — adding the client — takes about two minutes.
The federal schedule works in all 50 states. State depreciation schedules ship for primary-verified states — CA, GA, NY, FL, TX, CO, NJ, and IL at launch — with explicit add-back treatment where a state decouples from bonus depreciation.
Yes. For property placed in service in a prior year, the study includes the Form 3115 §481(a) catch-up — the missed depreciation lands on the current return. No amended returns.
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