If you own a property which you are planning to sell, be sure to consult a tax advisor or get informed about tax law before doing so. Many real estate agents also know the subtleties of property selling and taxation. Several small points can make the difference between having to pay capital gains tax or not.
Capital gains is something that not many of us worry about because we only have the one home which is often only sold in order to buy another property. Usually the next property will cost more money and will be a like-kind property so the question of capital gains tax never arises.
However, until now, there has been a little known tax clause which had taxed the most unsuspecting of people with capital gains. These people are newly widowed women, who suddenly find that they will now be taxed as a single woman. On top of losing a spouse, they also had to worry about losing a large chunk of their assets in the form of money from the sale of their family home.
When a home is sold, it has usually been the property of joint owners (most commonly husband and wife) and each owner is allowed to claim $250,000. This means that, for tax purposes, the average...