House Sale

[DALPLM]

We recently sold and purchased another primary residence in Ga. I know years ago specific closing costs were deductible. Are there any items that are now deductible other than interest and taxes? 

[Katherine S 63]

Great question!!

I am assuming that you had one primary residence, sold that residence and then move to a new primary residence.  If this is true, you can use the exclusion for most or all of the gains.  If you are married filing jointly, you can exclude $500,000 from the sale and if you are single you can exclude $250,000.

There are other limits to this exclusion.  The main one being how long you lived in that home.  You need to have lived in that home 2 out of the last 5 years.  There are some exceptions to this rule so I have included this link so you can read more about the exclusion and other aspects of primary home sales.  https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/home-ownership/tax-aspects-of-home-ownership-selling-a-home/L6t...

To figure your gain, you will take the sale price of the home that was sold and subtract the cost of the home when you bought it, any improvements to the home and then any costs to sell it (such as realtor fees, title fees, etc).  You might have HOA fees, utility fees and/or property taxes on your closing statement, these are not part of the costs to sell your property.  You can add property taxes paid for that home in the deductions and credits section of Turbotax.  

Please give me a thumbs up if this was helpful.

Katie S.

[DALPLM]

We will not exceed the $500K limit for capital gains. We lived there for 25 years. We purchased a house a few months before selling the original house. My question was less about capital gains and more about if any of the other expenses paid at closing would be deductible.  

[Katherine S 63]

The only expenses paid at closing that can be deducted would be the property taxes.  The rest are part of the home sale and are not something that can be deducted but are added to the cost of the house to reduce the capital gains.

Are you thinking of a particular expenses that you think you should be able to deduct?  I can not think of any other than Property taxes paid at closing.

Katie S.