I sold my primary home and answered Yes to living there for 2 of the past 5 yrs, yet turbo tax says, "No exclusion" for capital gains. What am I answering incorrectly?

[cerebrus619]

I answered no to using it as a rental as well as any other special cases such as selling another home or having a mortgage forgiven, etc. The tax code says, living in your primary home for 2 of 5 years before the sale qualifies you for exclusion of the gains up to $250,000 for me as an individual.

[NCperson]

ideas:

check the date that you purchased the home - did you enter it correctly? was that at least 2 years before he date you sold the home? 

have someone look over your shoulder at your entries - maybe there is something you entered incorrectly.

delete the home purchase and start over - and have someone watch you re-enter. 

you are right - as long as you owned the home for 24 months out of the past 5 years, and it is your primary residence, the first $250,000 (single filing)  of capital gain is tax free.

[dmertz]

There are several additional eligibility requirements.  See IRS Pub 523:  https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p523.pdf

[cerebrus619]

I was able to get it to recognize I was eligible for the exclusion by deleting that home sale entirely and creating a new one.  I had entered some incorrect answers during previous sessions, but even though I corrected them and went through all the steps in Edit Mode again, it must've kept some out-of-date state data that prevented it from correctly identifying my eligibility.

Lesson learned, I guess: If I make any mistakes creating an entity and save it, I won't go back later and edit it to correct them. I will just delete it and start over.

Thanks for the responses!