Documents for dealing with Capital Gains tax?
 

Hi all,

On our 2010 taxes we will have to deal with reporting my husband's sale of his London home. It took place after he became a PR, but I'd crunched some figures and I do not believe that we will be liable for any capital gains tax after the $500,000 married exemption.

My question is - what paperwork will we need to have/complete for our tax return regarding this point? I know the purchase and sale price and years of the house, and I understand that we can deduct the cost of work done on the house and seller agent fees from the amount of profit. We redid the bathroom, kitchen, and various internal work (roof, a couple walls), and years ago got double glazing put in. I don't have receipts for all of that but I have receipts for enough of it to put us under the exemption.

1) Is there a specific tax form for dealing with sale of overseas primary home? I had a look on the irs site last week but nothing jumped out.

2) Do I need to provide receipts of purchase/sale/upgrades/selling fees?

3) Once we are below the exemption amount, is there any value to continuing to list values of upgrades? For example, we won't need the bathroom and double glazing info to fall below the cap (and don't have receipts for that as far as I know), but should I include it anyway?

Thanks!

Re: Documents for dealing with Capital Gains tax?
 

You don't need to provide any documents when you file your taxes - you just fill in the numbers on the appropriate IRS forms.

The only time that you will need to show documentation is if you are audited so it is a good idea to gather everything together and put it somewhere that you will still be able to find it if you need it (which might not be for a couple of years - the IRS don't move very quickly ...)

Re: Documents for dealing with Capital Gains tax?
 

Get a tax preparation program such as Turbo Tax and it will prompt you though the sale of the house and prepare the correct forms. It can always be a problem if you don't have receipts (have to worry that the IRS will audit you during the following 3 years) and writeoffs with home improvements can be tricky.

http://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools.../INF12010.html