this is from a two-year-old thread but modified for your situation
https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/tax-credits-deductions/discussion/capital-gains-tax-from-buying-le...
we don't know the terms of the lease.
this is from an IRS website
You must first determine whether your agreement is a lease or a conditional sales contract. If the agreement is a lease, you may deduct the payments as rent (if for business otherwise not-deductible if personal). If the agreement is a conditional sales contract, you consider yourself as the outright purchaser of the equipment. You may generally recover the cost of such property used in a trade or business through depreciation deductions. No deduction if personal use.
Whether the agreement is a lease or a conditional sales contract depends on the intent of the parties as evidenced by their agreement, which is read in light of the facts and circumstances when it was entered into. Determine the parties' intent based on the facts and circumstances that exist when you enter into the agreement. No single test, or special combination of tests, always applies.
However, in general, you may consider an agreement as a conditional sales contract rather than a lease if one or more of the following conditions apply:
The agreement designates part of each payment towards an equity interest that you'll receive in the property.
You get title to the property upon the payment of a stated amount of "rental" payments required under the agreement.
The amount you must pay to use the property for a short time is an inordinately large part of the amount you would pay to get title to the property.
You pay much more than the current fair rental value for the property.
You have an option to buy the property at a nominal price compared to the value of the property when you may exercise the option. Determine this value when you enter into the agreement.
You have an option to buy the property for a small amount compared to the total amount you have to pay under the agreement.
The agreement designates some part of the payments as interest, or parts of the payments are easy to recognize as interest.
if you had a lease none of the payments add to your tax basis. your tax basis would be what you bought the vehicle for at the end (what you would pay according to the lease to buy the vehicle). if it was a conditional sales contract only the principal portion of the payments would be part of your tax basis also include any cap cost reduction you paid at the start and the buyout amount. the total would be reduced by any depreciation taken for business purposes to arrive at your tax basis. selling at a gain you would first need to recapture the depreciation, if any, as ordinary income and excess gain would be capital gain.
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if a lease, you are not selling the vehicle. you're selling your interest in the lease.
the next question for a lease is capital gain or ordinary income.
IRC 1221 defines what is a capital asset by listing what is not. leases are not excluded.
It is unclear as to whether you use the lease term for determining long or short-term capital gain.
If you bought the vehicle and then sold it there is no question that you would measure the holding period by using the dates bought and sold.
My opinion without anything to back it up would be if the lease term was more than a year you have long-term gain.
