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poachm
New Member

Do I still qualify for the two year tax advantage for my 2019 taxes?

I bought a home in January 2017 using money from a home I sold in January 2017. I filled for the two year tax advantage on my taxes for 2017. I plan on selling said bought home this year 2019 in March. Do I still qualify for the two year tax advantage for my 2019 taxes?

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3 Replies
Carl
Level 15

Do I still qualify for the two year tax advantage for my 2019 taxes?

Your terminology is wrong here, and I only want to correct it "for the record". It's not called a "tax advantage".

You're asking about the "capital gains tax exclusion" on the sale of your primary residence. Here's how this works.

IF:
 -You lived in the house as your primary residence for at least 2 of the last 5 years you owned it and;
 - Have not claimed the tax exclusion within the last 2 years prior to the sale of this primary residence;

Then you qualify for the capital gains tax exclusion. I'm not getting into to much detail here, because it's apparent to me you're already aware of those details. But I will stress this mainly for others reading this thread.

There is NO requirement for you to have owned the house for 5 years. The ownership requirement is a minimum of two years. Then the occupancy requirement as your primary residence is 24 months of the last 60 months you owned it. If you only owned it 24 months, and it was your primary residence for every single day of those 24 months, then you qualify. Those months do not have to be consecutive months either, if you owned it more than 24 months. To further clarify in a nutshell

counting backwards from the date of the closing on your sale, the house must have been your primary residence for 730 days of the last 1826 days you owned it. Unless you qualify for an exception, if you're one day short on the primary residency requirement, then you don't qualify. If you took the exclusion on a previous house within the last 730 days you owned it, then you don't qualify.

Now I seriously doubt you took the exclusion on your last house within the specified disqualification time frame. But the way that "could" happen is if you got married and say, each of you owned a house and your spouse sold her house 400 days ago and took her $250K exemption. That would mean that when you sell your house today, she would not qualify for the exemption again, but *you* would qualify for your $250K exemption.

poachm
New Member

Do I still qualify for the two year tax advantage for my 2019 taxes?

Hi Carl,

So even though I claimed the exception on my 2017 taxes I will still be able to claim the exception on my 2019 taxes because the sell of my home will take place after 24 months of living in it as my primary residence? I will not hit the $250k mark for profit.
Carl
Level 15

Do I still qualify for the two year tax advantage for my 2019 taxes?

If you sold a house on May 1st 2017 and took the exemption, then close on this current house on Apr 30th 2019, that's exactly two years and you do not qualify. But close a day later on May 1st 2019 and you qualify. The program itself will ask for the date you sold your residence, then later will ask if you sold another residence that you claimed the exemption on, anytime "AFTER" the date that will be exactly two years to the day from the date you sold your current residence. So the program will not let you take the exemption if you don't qualify, provided you enter accurate and correct information asked for, of course.
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