rjs
Level 15
Level 15

Get your taxes done using TurboTax

The money that your brother gives you is not an inheritance, and there is no way to make it an inheritance. It's a gift from your brother to you. You do not pay tax on a gift that you receive. You don't even enter it on your tax return.


Your brother has to file a gift tax return (Form 709), but he will not have to pay any gift tax unless the total of all the gifts he has made in his lifetime is more than about $12 million. TurboTax cannot be used to file a gift tax return. (If he gives you no more than $16,000 in 2022 or $17,000 in 2023 he does not have to file a gift tax return, but it sounds like you're talking about an amount larger than that.)


The house is not an inheritance to either your brother or you. An inheritance is something you receive upon the owner's death. If I understand you correctly, neither of your parents was an owner of the home when they passed, so no one inherited anything. The home was already in your brother's name, and he was the sole owner, before either of your parents passed.


All of the income from the sale of the home is income to your brother, since he was the sole owner at the time it was sold. There is no way for him to avoid reporting the sale on his tax return. It sounds like the home was a gift from your parents to your brother. If so, his basis is the amount that your parents paid for the home.


The way to avoid paying a lot of tax on the sale of the home would have been for your parents to own it until they both passed, and leave it to you and your brother in their wills. Unfortunately it's too late for that now.


If your brother did live in the home for any part of the five years preceding the sale he might be able to exclude some or all of the income from being taxed. More details would be needed.