Next President to Face Pressure on Taxes



IRS Clarifies Portions Of Home-Sale Tax Law - What's still amazing to me is that, more than seven years after this huge change in the law for residence sales, there are so many people, including a lot of tax and real estate professionals, who think the old replacement rule is still in effect. Rarely a day goes by that I don't see or hear someone explaining that the way to avoid tax on a home sale is to buy another more expensive one. That's very scary for their clients.

What's also interesting to consider is that the tax free exclusion was set at $250,000 per person ($500,000 per heterosexual married couple) back more than seven years ago. With some of the appreciation in real estate values in places like the PRC and Las Vegas, that often isn't enough to cover the entire gains people are realizing. Unfortunately, the chances of that figure being raised, or even allowed to rise with the CPI (Consumer Price Index), are very slim. Most of the country already believes that people have to be nuts to live on the Left Coast, and there just isn't much sympathy for the fact that only half a million dollars of tax free profits every two years isn't good enough.



- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 9/06/2004 07:26:00 PM Send this post: