How record the sale of a second home? Have 1099-S form, per IRS its a substitute form.TT asks Did you get a 1099-B or a brokerage stmt for these sales? Can I answer Yes?

See the instructions to properly enter the sale of your second home. 

Generally, property held for personal use is a capital asset. Gain from a sale or exchange of that property is a capital gain. Loss from the sale or exchange of that property is not deductible. You can deduct a loss relating to personal-use property only if it results from a casualty or theft.
 

To enter that sale of a second home in TurboTax Online:

1. Open or continue your return.
2. In the search box, search for sold second home and select the Jump to link in the search results.
3. Answer Yes on the Did you sell any stocks, mutual funds, bonds, or other investments in 2020? screen.
   • If you land on the Your investment sales summary screen, select Add More Sales.
4. On the OK, what type of investments did you sell? screen, select Other then Continue.
5. On the Tell us more about this sale screen, enter the name of the person or institution that brokered the sale.
6. On the next screen, select Second Home (choose this also for inherited homes) or Land and answer the questions to finish entering your sale.

To enter sale of a second home if you're using the CD\Download version, click on TurboTax CD/Download.

Related Information:

• Where do I enter Form 1099-S?
• Is the money I made from a home sale taxable?
• I sold my rental property. How do I report that?
• Where is Form 8949?

Why is the 1099-S form not considered a substitute form for the 1099-B?

If you say no to did you get a 1099-B or a brokerage statement for these sales then you have to choose box F , which is long-term transactions not reported to you, which is not correct, since the 1099-S will go to the IRS.

You are trying to enter the house as if it were stock. It isn't. 1099-S is its own unique reporting form and has nothing to do with 1099-B.

Enter the sale as directed by HelenC12 and the reporting will be accurate.

This does not work on my TT Premier.  I cannot get the "other" sales for second home.  All I get is the information for stocks, etc.  Not working properly.  Frustrated.

Sale of a second home is reported in the "Stocks Mutual Funds, Bonds and Other" interview of Investment Income; it is not treated any differently than other investment sales.

Here are the screens from the interview that are used to report sales of a "second home":

Thank you, but this is what I get:

1. Did you sell any investments in 2020:  YES

2.  Did you get a 1099-B or brokerage statement: NO

3.  Tell us about sale.

     a.  Enter 1 at at time or

     b.  I"ll enter a summary for each sale

  If I chose, #1 - what I get is:

   Description, date sold, date acquired, sale proceeds, cost or basis, and 

   holding period.  If I continue, I get no choice for second home, etc.  

Seems like Premier is not working correctly on my end, seems like it acts as if this is a stock instead of second home.  

wish i could post pictures to show you what i have on my screen

You are actually in the correct section.  The downloaded software has a bit of a different display but you are entering it correctly.

Once you enter the information above, you will see subsequent screens where you will be able to enter additional information as needed.

The results of your input in the section above will be reported as a capital gain or loss on Schedule D as applicable.  

thank you so much, finally!

In the CD version there is no second home option.  If you answer no to Did you get a 1099-B or a brokerage statement for these sales you get to the screen shots you are writing about.  But the option Long term (Box F) , which stands for Long-term transactions not reported to you on Form 1099-B, is not entirely true.  Since the 1099-S does get reported to the IRS its just not a 1099-B.

If you answer yes to Did you get a 1099-B or a brokerage statement etc. you get to fill-in the financial company and it's tax id number.  The rest of the screens are the same.  When you get to the screen that has the holding period you get an option E (Long term uncovered), which means the basis was not reported to the IRS, which is more accurate.

Both ways are going to get reported on the 8949 form.

Per IRS instruction for FORM 8949  it mentions 1099-B, 1099-S (or substitute statements).  Still not sure what the correct way is to record the second home.  Do you answer the question no, because you did not get a 1099B and ignore the IRS instructions that mention 1099-S and substitute statements?   

There is no special interview in TurboTax for Form 1099-S - it is entered in the Stocks, Mutual Funds, Bonds and Other interview of Investment Income and is not a Form 1099-B.

In the Stocks, Mutual Funds, Bonds and Other interview, answer "No" when asked "Did you get a 1099-B or other brokerage statement for these sale?"  Then, enter the second home sale information from the 1099-S.

In desktop versions of TurboTax, the screen looks like the following:

Well there is not a place to enter the Real Estate Tax that is indicated on the 1099-S.  I don't understand why Turbo Tax does not have the correct screens to lead us "lay" people to where this needs to go, like they do when entering W-2's, SSA's, etc.  Certainly would be much simpler if they did.  I am entering my sale of second home as indicated above and hope the IRS can figure it out and doesn't give me a hard time about it.  Thank you.

You would enter the real estate tax on the property tax section for itemized deductions. This will transfer to the Schedule A that lists the deductions.

It is confusing that there is not an entry for the 1099-S. Sales that are reported on a 1099-S include timber sales, house sales, and  land sales. Most tax software handles the form the same way as TurboTax. 

Just to clarify, I am speaking of the 1099-S, box 6, you have "buyers part of real estate tax" on the sale of second home.  Where does this get entered?  So it's tax based on the sale not property taxes.  

Thank you.

See the back of the 1099-S form.  

Box 6. Shows certain real estate tax on a residence charged to the buyer at settlement. If you have already paid the real estate tax for the period that includes the sale date, subtract the amount in box 6 from the amount already paid to determine your deductible real estate tax. But if you have already deducted the real estate tax in a prior year, generally report this amount as income on the “Other income” line of Schedule 1 (Form 1040). For more information, see Pub. 523, Pub. 525, and Pub. 530.

1099-S, box 6, "buyers part of real estate tax" does not refer to the sale. It is the real estate tax is paid for owning the home and is entered on Schedule A, where appropriate.

Thank you for clarifying this.  I did subtract this amount when figuring out how much property taxes were paid.  So I think I am good.

Thanks!  I'll answer no and use this as back-up if I'm ever asked why I did this way.  

There is no special treatment of the sale of a second home except for it is subject to short term or long term capital gains treatment and sold on Form 8949 carrying to Sch D, as long as it was never a rental property.

There is no exclusion of gain for the sale of a second home as there is for the sale of a principal residence,

This was very helpful.  I have a different question pertaining to a few of the questions.  On the 'cost or other basis' entry, what is entered there?  If  I enter the 'purchase'  price of the second home, then enter closing costs, etc into the 'fees not already deducted  from the reported sales price' I get a different result (less capital gain).  When I enter the purchase price + closing costs into the 'cost of other basis' field, I have a higher capital gain.  Which way is correct??

To get "Cost or other basis",  enter the purchase price of the second home plus the cost of any improvements you made.

Then, enter closing costs, etc. into the 'fees not already deducted  from the reported sales price'.

Subtracting the above two figures from "Sales proceeds" will result in your capital gain (or loss).

Your instructions are totally wrong and don't work. No matter what I do I get sent to pages for entering a stock transaction.  When you search as instructed you get 8 million results and links.  If you click the first one it sends you to the same instructions from where you started.  There is NO "Other" button which you reference so that is completely WRONG and so I can NOT get any further.  TurboTax is a horrible product and will not be using it again and the support is ROTTEN.

The second home sale can be entered into TurboTax CD or Desktop version by following the steps below. You do not use the Form 1099-S as an entry form.

1. Open your TurboTax account > Select the Personal tab then Personal Income > I'll choose what I want to work on
2. Scroll to Investment Income > Select Stocks, Mutual Funds, Bonds, Other > Start or Update
3. Add or Edit your sale that is NOT reported on a Form 1099-B > Select to enter a summary of each sale (you only have one)
4. Enter the Total Proceeds > Cost Basis (includes any capital improvements while you owned the property)
5. Enter the holding period - if you owned the property for more than one year the it is long term, one year or less is short term
6. Continue to finish your sale.  

The gain from the sale will be fully taxable because a second home is not eligible for the home sale exclusion. See the image below for assistance. Whether you specifically select Second Home is not relevant for the tax return itself.

my mother died. we had a tod on the house in aug 2019. we sold the house in may 2020. there was no capital gains, as we sold it for less than it was assessed for at the time of the transfer. i got a 1099-S from the escrow company

1. i went to investments in Turbo Tax home and business

2. i see the place where you fill in the boxes. i know  i fill in holding period asproceeds  short term 

3. what do i put in the other boxes?  the house was assessed for 865,000 and it was sold at 835,000. i had paid the taxes up until the date of sale which was about 700$.  box 6 on the 1099 says 184.07. the realtor took 35,000$ 

4. so what do i put in the2 boxes that ask..  sale proceeds and cost or other basis???

5. also where do i put the value of the house when transferred to show that i had no capital gains?

i am totally overwhelmed. i hope you can assist me. thank you soooo much

There is one important thing to note here.  When you inherit a house the basis for computing capital gains is "stepped up" to the market value at the time of death.   In other words when you sell an inherited house you compute the capital gains by subtracting the value at which it sold minus the stepped up basis (the market value at time of death) minus any fix up expenses,i.e., Capital gains=Sale price - stepped up value - fix up expenses.  From what you have described if you do that math you get a negative number which means you owe zero capital gains.   We reported the capital gains on the sale of our vacation home (which we never used or claimed as a rental which makes a big difference to the IRS and how you compute capital gains) on Schedule D Part II Line 10 "Long-term Capital Gains and Losses".  We put down the sale price as $255000 in column (D) "Proceeds (Sales Price)" as that was the amount on the 1099 we received from the title company when we sold it and then put $225708 (which is the price we paid for it) in column (E) "Cost or other basis" and then put -$26538 (i.e., a negative number) for the expenses we had fixing it up in column (G) "Adjustments to Gain or Loss". So we had $255000 - $225708 - $26538=$2754 so we put $2754 in column (H) "Gain or Loss".  These same numbers were also entered on Form 8949 Part II and we checked box F "Long-term transactions not reported to you on Form 1099-B".  I am not sure what you meant by "tod" in your note.  I am not 100% sure we did it the correct way but I believe we did.  Good luck.