In the state of Florida can anyone tell me how long you have to be in the house before you can sell it and not get wacked with capital gains?
you will pay capital gains at the Federal level after 1 yr. (assumeing not owner occupied); less than that will be ordinary income.
as for your FL liability, why not just go the FL State website and go to the tax department and pull down their tax forms; many states not have a capital gains rate (everything is tax under their std. tax tables).
thanks for the info aak
I thought FL was one of the states with no personal income tax.
Does FL tax sale profits on your real estate, even though there is no income tax on your earnings?
I’m not sure with teh tax laws in FLorida yet I just moved here so I have a lot of homework to do.
Macie,
FLA has no income tax. There is a modest tax on sale of real property, which varies slightly among counties. There is no state tax on profit that I know of.
Capital gains vs ordinary income is an issue for investment property. Residential (primary home) can be sold once every 24 months with no federal tax bill.
Good luck,
Ray
Ray,
Could you explain what you are getting at here. Investment property always gets capital gains tax treatment. Property held for investment use one year or less gets short term capital gains tax treatment. Property held for investment use longer than one year gets long term capital gains tax treatment.
Ordinary income tax treatment brings self-employment income taxes into play. This does not happen with investment property.
Perhaps what you really meant to do is draw attention to the difference between the tax rate for long term capital gains (15% maximum) and the short term capital gains tax rate (same rate as taxpayer’s ordinary income tax rate).
Dave,
You’re right about the tax rates. I interpreted the question about being in a house to mean living in the house, as opposed to owning it as invetsment.
Ray
i believe it’s 2 years