Question

Selling primary home in CA and planning to live in RV for a couple years, any capital gains or tax concerns?

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
July 28, 2021
1 reply
0 views

Our current thinking is to sell our home of 20+yrs in CA and live in our RV for a couple years when we retire. After a couple years we expect to buy a new home somewhere, likely not in CA. Are there any time limits to the Capital Gains exemptions we feel we qualify for, the basic $250k/$500k married? Do we need to buy another home within "x" months or years to maintain tax exemptions on those gains?

Thanks!

DoninGA

Employee

The requirement to purchase another primary residence after the sale of your home to defer capital gains taxes was removed from the tax code in 1997.

If you sold your primary personal residence and you lived in and owned the home for at least two years in the five year period on the date of sale, you do not have to report the sale if your gains are less then the exclusion amounts of $250,000 if filing Single or $500,000 if filing Married Filing Jointly (and both lived in the home for two years).

If you had a gain greater then the exclusion amounts then you would have to report the sale. Also, if you received a Form 1099-S for the sale either with a gain or a loss, the sale has to be reported.