Plan on selling your personal residence and excluding the gain on sale from income? Make sure you meet the “ownership use” test! Make sure “Yo casa is yo casa”!
You may qualify to exclude from your income all or part of any gain from the sale of your main home. Your main home is the one in which you live most of the time.
Ownership and Use Tests
To claim the exclusion, you must meet the ownership and use tests. This means that during the 5-year period ending on the date of the sale, you must have:
• Owned the home for at least two years (the ownership test)
• Lived in the home as your main home for at least two years (the use test)
Gain
If you have a gain from the sale of your main home, you may be able to exclude up to $250,000 of the gain from your income ($500,000 on a joint return in most cases).
• If you can exclude all of the gain, you do not need to report the sale on your tax return
• If you have gain that cannot be excluded, it is taxable. Report it on Schedule D (Form 1040)
Loss
You cannot deduct a loss from the sale of your main home.
Check out this link:
https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/sale-of-residence-real-estate-tax-tips