The Ledger is the asset dashboard for short-term-rental owners. It holds the six metrics that decide whether a property is actually working as a tax-advantaged asset — and prices it accordingly.
Owners are sold a tax strategy and given no ledger to prove it's working. PMS exports are operations. Bookkeeping software is bookkeeping. Neither one tells you whether the property is paying you back on an after-tax, after-recapture, after-exit basis — which is the only basis that matters.
The Ledger is the truth layer underneath the strategy. Six metrics, one record, every assumption disclosed. We separate dashboard ratios from engine-level tax computations so you and your preparer never confuse one for the other.
Each tile is a metric with an owner question, a one-line definition, a posture, and the statutory authority it draws from. The deep-dives below show the math, the worked numbers, and the disclosures.
The Annual Tax Benefit answers the question every owner actually asks: did this rental save me money this year? The answer is the current-year income-tax reduction the property produced — driven primarily by operating deductions, mortgage interest, ordinary depreciation, and any cost-segregation-driven accelerations (bonus or §179) that flowed through.
Version 1 computes the benefit at the property level, applying the configured limitation stack in order: basis → at-risk → passive (W-2 Active exception or REPS) → excess business loss → NOL. We keep the "allowed-or-allowable" warning visible on every tile — missed depreciation does not erase future recapture exposure, and we won't let a property silently understate its pool by skipping deductions it should have taken.
If a cost-seg study is indicated for the property but no values are loaded, the Annual Tax Benefit tile blocks rather than shows a knowingly low number. That's a product policy, not a default.
Cost segregation is sold as a savings strategy. It's actually a timing strategy: it accelerates deductions today and creates a recapture liability tomorrow. The IRS keeps a ledger of that liability whether you do or not. Every year you depreciate, the pool grows. Every year you don't measure it, the surprise at exit gets bigger.
The Embedded Recapture Pools are two pools, separated by character because they recapture at different rates: Pool A (§1245) — personal property and land improvements that came out of a cost-seg study — recaptures at ordinary rates, capped only by recognized gain. Pool B (§1250) — the building shell — generates unrecaptured §1250 gain taxed at a maximum 25%.
We keep the pools rate-agnostic on the dashboard. The sale modeler — a separate engine — is where actual tax due gets computed. Conflating the two is exactly the mistake we built this product to stop.
The Recapture Coverage Ratio divides what the property has produced (after-tax appreciation plus cumulative operating contribution, measured as pre-tax NOI for debt-financed properties) by what it owes at exit (effective recapture after any suspended-loss shield). At 1.00×, the property pays its own exit tax. Below, it doesn't.
We deliberately exclude depreciation-driven tax deferral from the Coverage Ratio numerator. You don't get to count savings already spent. The ratio measures real-world coverage — what the asset actually produces — not the same dollar twice.
The Recapture Coverage Point solves the Coverage Ratio backwards: how much additional appreciation gets you to 1.00×? We surface that as both a percentage target and a years-to-coverage estimate against current trajectory.
True Owner Return is the only metric on this page that requires you to commit to an exit. That's the point. Pre-tax cash flow lets you avoid the question. The Ledger asks it directly: across the full hold, after every tax effect and the closing waterfall, what did your equity actually return?
The math integrates four locked components: the annual cash-flow series (NOI, taxes actually paid, debt service); timing of tax effects so the Annual Tax Benefit is never double-counted as a separate inflow; debt payoff at exit, never counted twice against principal already retired; and the full Appendix C exit waterfall — selling costs, amount realized, adjusted basis, gain allocation, §1245 / §1250 split, NIIT if applicable, and any §469(g)-released suspended losses.
Two paths produce different answers because they unlock losses against different income buckets. Toggle below.
When an owner who's been carrying suspended passive losses sells the entire interest in a qualifying disposition, those losses are released under §469(g) and become available to offset other income — including the recapture and gain produced by the sale itself. That offset is real money. It's also conditional, narrow, and routinely overstated.
Exit Coverage quantifies the offset only in scenarios where it actually applies. If you were never suspended (because you've been W-2 Active or REPS throughout, with active losses each year), Exit Coverage stays dark — and the dashboard says so plainly. If suspended losses exist and the disposition qualifies, Exit Coverage reports the offset against the True Owner Return exit tax stack.
The Ledger inherits the Tracker's PMS sync and evidence vault for qualification posture, then layers an asset-and-basis ledger and a scenario-input panel to drive every metric beyond the Annual Tax Benefit.
Connect a property, import basis and depreciation, set an exit scenario. The Ledger produces all six metrics on the first run, with disclosures attached.