Sale of home: sold for $550,000, $207,000 mortgage payoff, $44,000 closing cost. How do I claim sale of home on turbotax? Ty

[xmasbaby0 · Accepted solution]

If your gain was more than  $250,000 filing Single, or more than $500,000 filing Married Filing Jointly the sale must be reported on your tax return.  Whether you re-invested the gain in to another house is irrelevant.  If you  have a Form 1099-S go to Federal>Wages and Income>Less Common Income>Sale of Home (gain or loss)

If you owned and lived in the home as your primary residence for at least 2 of the last 5 years on the date of the sale, you do not have to report the home sale if the gain is less than $250K filing Single, or less than $500K filing Married Filing Jointly (and you both owned and lived in the home for at least 2 years).

• If you are using online TT, you need Premium software to report the 1099-S

[rjs · Accepted solution]

The mortgage payoff has nothing to do with calculating the gain or the tax on the sale of your home. You don't take the mortgage payoff into consideration at all.

You have to determine you basis for the home. Your basis is basically how much you paid for it when you bought it, plus the cost of any improvements that you made. TurboTax will help you calculate your basis. (If you acquired your home other than by buying it, such as an inheritance or gift, TurboTax will guide you on that also.)

Your gain is the selling price minus your basis and closing costs. The gain is the amount that you pay tax on, but you may be able to exclude some or all of the gain from tax as xmasbaby0 explained above.

Follow the instructions that xmasbaby0 gave you to enter the sale in TurboTax, whether or not you got a 1099-S. But if you did not get a 1099-S and you are able to exclude the entire gain, you do not have to report the sale on your tax return. In that case, TurboTax will ask you whether you want to report it.