Can I and my ex-spouse both claim 250K exempt for house selling that happened before divorce?

[nkair]

I got my divorce finalized in Dec 2020. And we sell our only house in June 2020 and for easy to handle the money in divorce.  Now, we have to file tax return as single and I want to know if both my ex-spouse and I could claim the 250K exempt for home selling.  Thank you!

[DavidD66]

Yes, if you jointly owned the house when it was sold, and it was the primary residence for each of you for 24 of the 60 months prior to selling the house, you can both exclude up to $250,000 on the sale.

[nkair]

Thank you.

So What schedule should I file for the transaction? The sales price / expense and basis should be half of the original one?  If we split everything. Do I need to get the divorce document as support doc mail to IRS?

[gloriah5200]

Reporting Gain or Loss on Your Home Sale:

Determine whether you need to report the gain from your home.

You need to report the gain if ANY of the following is true.

• You have taxable gain on your home sale (or on the residential portion of your property if you made separate calculations for home and business) and don’t qualify to exclude all of the gain.

• You received a Form 1099-S. If so, you must report the sale on Form 8949 even if you have no taxable gain to report. See Instructions for Form 8949 and Instructions for Schedule D for more details.

• You wish to report your gain as a taxable gain even though some or all of it is eligible for exclusion.

If NONE of the three bullets above is true, you don’t need to report your home sale on your tax return

If you received Form 1099-S and must report the sale of the principal residence on the return Form 8949, then you would enter the information of the adjusted cost basis and the selling price and then use the adjustment code of H for exclusion of gain on sale of home in column f.

For additional information, please refer to the IRS Instructions for Form 8949:

IRS Instructions for Form 8949

[kenlkidd]

Did you ever get an answer? I have the same question and am surprised TurboTax does not have any guidance on this as I assume it is very common.  I am not sure whether to half everything or claim 500,000 exemption somehow.  There has to be a way to factor her $250,000 tax basis out.   

[DaveF1006]

If this event happened before the divorce and if you qualify under the ownership and use test, you will each be able to claim the $250,000 exclusion as single tax filers. In this situation, you will need to split the reporting in half, regarding the basis and the proceeds. The ex would need to do the same thing on their return.