@terrys-mail2 wrote:
I stopped working in 12/15/23. Drew on unemployment benefits (taxable) till 4/1/24 ($7200.00). Filed for retirement and started drawing a $4600.00 a month pension 4/1/24 ($36800.00). My wife is an independent contractor and her gross income is $26,000.
I believe federal taxes on the taxable portion of the house I sold is broken up in 3 rates. 0%, 15%, and 24%. How do I know which tax bracket applies to my situation?
No, you have the tax rates wrong.
First, was this your personal home? And did you own it at least 2 years and live in it as your main home for 2 of the past 5 years (24 months or 731 days, the days do not have to be consecutive). Then you qualify to exclude up to $500,000 of the capital gain from any tax. See publication 523.
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p523.pdf
Note that if you qualify for the exclusion but you also used the home for business or as a rental, the portion of your capital gain that is attributed to depreciation that you took or could have taken, is subject to income tax as depreciation recapture even if the rest of the gain is excludable. Recapture is taxed as ordinary income, capped at 25%.
Second, make sure you are determining your capital gains correctly. Your gain is the difference between adjusted purchase price and adjusted selling price. Your gain may not have much relationship to the amount of cash you actually got. Publication 523 described allowable adjustments to the purchase and sales prices.
Then finally, if your gain is taxable, and you are married filing jointly, and your other taxable income will be $70,000, and assuming you owned the home more than 1 year, then the math works like this.
$70,000 income minus standard deduction of $29,200 equals $40,800. The 12% regular tax rate ends at $94,299. $94,299 minus $40,800 = $53,499. So the first $53,499 is taxed at the long term capital gains rate of zero %.
The 15% LTCG rate goes all the way up to a total income of $583,750 for married filing jointly. Since your total taxable income ($70,000 minus standard deduction plus the house) is $528,300, you remain within the 15% bracket.
So the first $53,000 is tax-free and the remaining $434,000 (roughly speaking) is taxed at 15%.
You can also try the TaxCaster.
TaxCaster tax calculator
