Quick answers, plainly stated.
Fifteen common questions from CPAs, EAs, and tax strategists. Anything else, write to us at support@unlevered.io.
What it is, plainly.
An engineered analysis that reclassifies real-estate basis from the 27.5- or 39-year shell into shorter MACRS recovery periods, accelerating depreciation. For a property placed in service in 2025+, OBBBA also restores 100% bonus depreciation on the qualifying short-life pieces.
The net effect: a property owner can claim a much larger first-year deduction than straight-line depreciation alone allows.
The traditional cost seg model routes a $7,500-ish client engagement to an outside engineering firm for $4,000-$12,000. Your firm keeps a slim referral margin and loses the relationship moment. Unlevered lets you run the study yourself, inside an hour of CPA time, with engineer review baked in.
A licensed P.E. reviews every study before delivery. They spot-check classifications against permits and photos, sign off on the Form 4562, and stamp the report. The audit trail captures who reviewed, when, and at what engine-run hash.
Yes. Your firm name, mark, and accent color appear on every client-facing surface: the portal, the deposit invoice, the interactive report, and the final PDF. A small “Powered by Unlevered” footer is present on the trial and can be removed on the paid plan.
Two line items, no surprises.
Two parts: an annual platform-access fee per CPA seat, plus a per-delivered-report fee that fires only when you mark a study delivered. Trials, estimates, and drafts are free.
Specific dollar amounts live inside the trial dashboard, where you can run the CPA-math against your own client invoice before deciding.
Annual seat fees are prorated on cancellation. Per-report fees on already-delivered studies are not refundable, because the engineer has signed and the deliverable is in the client’s hands. Pre-delivery, you can cancel a draft at any time at no cost.
Yes. Firms delivering more than 25 studies per year unlock per-report discounts. Contact us with volume estimates and we’ll structure a multi-seat contract.
How defensible is the output?
Yes. The classification methodology follows the IRS Cost Segregation Audit Techniques Guide, MACRS Pub. 946, and the OBBBA bonus depreciation tables. Every component allocation traces to a public citation that’s embedded directly in the report.
A licensed Professional Engineer of record reviews and signs every delivered study. We display their license number on the report cover and again in the audit trail.
A hash-locked log of every engine run, every classification decision, every source citation, and every engineer review event. The audit trail is downloadable as a standalone archive alongside the report.
No. Unlevered does not carry audit-defense insurance at MVP and does not represent clients in front of the IRS. We provide IRS-aligned methodology, engineer review, and a complete audit trail. Representation, if needed, remains your firm’s responsibility.
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 seats. Unlevered admin (Bola at MVP, signing internally as engineer of record across all firms) reviews every study before release. Row-level security defaults to deny: nobody outside your workspace ever sees client data. Internal Unlevered engineers do not access workspaces unless you grant explicit support access.
Yes, available at /legal/dpa. Subprocessor list is auto-generated and lives there too. We notify you when subprocessors change.
How a study actually runs.
From full client docs and deposit, 24 hours to engineer-signed delivery. The CPA-side intake (creating the engagement, sending the portal link) takes 5 minutes.
All 50 states for the federal schedule. We generate state-specific schedules for the 30+ states that fully conform to MACRS, with explicit conformity warnings for partial-conformity states (CA, HI, NJ, PA, plus a handful of others). The Maui case study walks through the partial-conformity case in detail.
Yes. For properties placed in service in prior years, we generate the Form 3115 §481(a) adjustment alongside the standard schedule. No amended returns needed.
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