Does The New Health Care Bill Tax My Home Sale?
Friday, September 3rd, 2010Taxing My Home Sale? I need details!!
President Obama signed the Health Care Bill into law that did carry a new 3.8% Medicare Tax on the sale of homes. You might just be wondering if you will have to pay this new Medicare Tax when you sell your home. The answer is maybe yes, maybe no but yet possibly. Sounds like an answer from a government worker. Yet, the answer is truly dependent on circumstances. Like many provisions in the Health Care Bill, as more details become available more analysis is required to really know how this new 3.8% Medicare tax applies to a home being sold.
How to Know if You’re Hit by the Taxman
It isn’t until 2013 that the new Medicare Tax starts for home sales. So it will be a while to even concern yourself. When the new provision does take place it will not apply to all homes being sold. The taxpayers it applies to have adjusted gross income of $250,000 if married filing joint or $200,000 for individuals. That could have quite a few people escape right there. Next, the current capital gains on home sales still provides for you to exclude gain of $500,000 if married filing joint or $250,000 if filing as an individual. Next, if you are still eligible there still may be a reduction for you because the 3.8% Medicare Tax applies to your “net investment income”. This is easy right? The good news is that it will only affect a limited amount of taxpayers. Of course, this is certainly not good news for those unfortunate people.
Explain A Little More Please
First a review of the present rules for excluding the gain on the sales of principal residences.
- 1. The house must be your main residence and you must have owned and lived in the home 2 out of the prior 5 years.
- 2. If you have a gain from the sale of your main home you can exclude certain amounts of the gain as discussed in the above paragraph. The important term is gain on the home sale and not the proceeds. The gain is computed by taking the proceeds of the sale and applying certain allowed adjustments then reducing this amount by the adjusted basis of the home you sold. IRS Publication 523 is a good resource to use to compute the basis of the home you sold. However, if you still have a taxable gain after you calculate the adjusted home sale proceeds minus the adjusted basis of the home minus the allowable exclusion, first congratulations, then this remaining gain could be subject to the new 3.8% Medicare tax.
Even still the tax applies to that portion of the gain that is included in the “net investment income”.
Thus One More Explanation Is Necessary
So there might be a little more reduction on this home gain tax? Well again yes or no but possibly. But to save our sanity and for this discussion, let’s just look at what is “net investment income” and leave it there for now. The real worry can kick start in 2013. So if you are planning on selling you Gainesville Fl home, you have time!
IRS Form 4952 states that your gross income from property held for investment can be reduced by investment expenses resulting in net investment income. So the gain from the sale of the home is mingeled with other gains on their investment and then is reduced for investment expenses. The difference will be subject to the new Medicare tax. Just be aware that there is a new tax on the gain on certain home sales possibly looking for you!
You can get more information on this by visiting Gainesville Fl Home. Your source for Gainesville-Florida-Realty and other real estate topics for the public interest!
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