RogerD1
Employee Tax Expert

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Did you each get half of the proceeds of the sale?  If so, you can each claim half of all of all items related to the property such as the original purchase price, improvements made, expenses related to purchase and sale, etc.  If you got unequal shares of the proceeds, you will need to apportion all of these items based on the percent of the proceeds each of you received.

 

The "basis" of your home gets subtracted from the sale price to give you the gain.  The basis of the home will include the purchase price of the home, the expenses of the purchase (which you can get from the HUD-1 you would have received when you bought the home), and the cost of permanent improvements to the home.

 

From the sales price you will be able to subtract the sale expenses to get the net proceeds from the sale.  Subtracting the home "basis" from this will give you the capital gain.  And as DawnC mentioned previously, you will each be able to exclude up to $250,000 of gain provided each of you lived in the home for 2 out of the last 5 years.

 

IRS Publication 523 has more detailed information about the tax laws for a home sale.

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