Clear evidence Americans spend too much‼️

Back at the inception of the growth of public storage units entities I saw a lot of them being sold as master limited partnerships (MLP). The business model promotion was the MLP developers/general partners bought land just outside of developed areas of a city, funded the building of the storage units with funds from the limited partners, and took accelerated depreciation for quick expenses deductible against other ordinary income by the limited partners who expected that in a decade or two the city would expand and the property would then be sold and the gain from the sale of the appreciated land would be taxed at lower capital gain rates.The alternative positive outcome was the limited partner would die owning the MLP interest and the limited partner’s heirs would inherit the MLP interest at a FMV stepped up basis with no tax upon sale of their MLP interest.

The plan did not work out well for the limited partners. The government changed the tax rules which often suspended the deduction of the pass-through passive losses, the general partner management fees often eliminated all operating income during the rental period and the limited partner annual K-1’s were often hard to get and/or not timely delivered. The broker selling the MLP interest would get a large upfront commission and the limited partners started their ownership in a financial hole that just got deeper. The limited partner interests were often unsaleable.

I expect the recent increases in working from home and the rise of internet sales killing the expected strip mall development that were expected to buy the land the storage units were built upon means the storage units are now permanent and the bad MLP business model is mostly a thing of the past.

Maybe the limited partner buyers need the storage units to hold their tax records and returns.