Holding Investment property more than one year

[billcrider]

I am very familiar with  holding real estate long term as rentals. I own several. But I have never held a flip property across a tax year before.

In January 2015 I bought a property to flip. I never rented it or had income from it. I rehabbed it myself, serving as the general contractor and performed much of the labor. I hired electricians, plumbers, roofers as needed. I sold the property in January 2017 as at a nice profit.

When I did my 2015 and 2016 taxes, I saw no place for  that property on schedule E or any other schedule. I had no need to depreciate it and I had no income from it. I took no deductions for my expenses (which included taxes, insurance, materials, labor, and more). 

Now I plan to take all those expenses as a deduction from my basis to reduce my taxable profit. Is this right? Or is there any exclusion for taxes, insurance and such? I am not deducting anything for my time and labor - only what I paid other people.  

Since I held it two years, these should be long term capital gains, right? 

Was there some schedule I should have reported this property on while I was holding and repairing it?

[PaulaM]

Yep, you are on the right path.

If you are in the business of flipping houses, then you report all income on a schedule C as business income. If you are not in the business of flipping houses, then you report as a sale of a capital asset (long term in your case) in the Investment section.

Add all of your rehabbing and carrying costs incurred to the property basis.