Understanding the taxes for selling rental property is an essential step to know when you’re thinking about selling a rental house. Selling a rental property comes with many steps, questions like “should I sell my rental property?”, and complications which may also involve tax implications. The taxes for selling rental property in CA can be incredibly confusing for plenty of reasons, but don’t worry – I’m here to help you out. In this article, we’re going to look at taxes on selling rental property in CA, how tax sales work, how to avoid paying capital gains, capital gains tax on sale of rental property, capital gains tax on sale of your second home and more.
Let’s go.
How taxes for selling rental property in CA work?
If you’re completely new to the real estate business and taxes on selling rental property in CA, you might be asking yourself how taxes work in the first place.
Here’s how:
HowStuffWorks states that each property is divided into assessment areas or assessment units.
The value of a property is determined by a tax assessor through property tax assessment.
“For example, the Rose City government has a $6 million budget and receives $3.5 million in sales tax revenue and state aid. Rose City needs to raise $2.5 million in property taxes to cover the budget. $6,000,000 – $3,500,000 = $2,500,000”
Some of the property cost can be recovered with depreciation.
What is depreciation?
Depreciation is a tax deduction which allows you to recover costs of a particular property.
Residential rental properties can be depreciated over 27 ½ years with MARCS system or 40 years with an alternative system.
You cannot claim depreciation.
What happens if property taxes for selling rental property aren’t paid?
If your property taxes aren’t paid, you could face a fine and have your property seized. Not paying your taxes could also reflect badly on your credit score, making it difficult to purchase further properties. Please consult with the IRS Publication 594.
How to avoid paying capital gains?
Forbes identifies 14 ways to avoid paying capital gains when it comes to taxes for selling rental property in CA. I’ll cover 5 most important ones.
Stock exchange
Those with a good credit and appreciated securities can apply for a stock exchange with services who trade their stock with a diversified portfolio (however, equally valued). Who uses this option? Investors who are looking to avoid paying large capital gains on taxes for selling rental property in CA.
Health Savings Accounts
Contributing to health savings accounts will also mean you are able to receive a tax deduction. Please note that you might have to do more paperwork and no economic value can be gained from this.
Move to a lower tax bracket state
State taxes are different and depending on where you live, you can avoid paying state tax or lower it.
Give stocks to family members
You can give some of your stocks to family members in lower tax brackets. This is one of the most beneficiary ways to avoid paying capital gains.
1031 exchange
What is 1031 exchange? It’s another way to avoid paying capital gains – within 180 days of the sale you can roll your proceeds into a similar investment type. Please note that the rules to this exchange are very complex, however, by doing the 1031 exchange you can without a doubt avoid paying capital gains.
How to make capital gain or capital loss when you sell?
Capital gains or capital losses are made everytime you sell a rental property, unless the property was bought before 20th September 1985. These gains or losses can also be made from capital improvements since the acquired date .
The amount of your capital gain depends on the capital gain tax rate and as a result, according to Forbes, many gains are, in fact, never taxed.
If you co-own a property, capital gains or losses are made according to your property interest.
Capital gains or losses can be dismissed in the case of a rollover.
What is a rollover?
Rollover (disregarding a capital gain) applies in the case of a destroyed property or property which was transferred to a former spouse.
I need to sell my second house – what are capital gains tax on sale of second home?
The capital gains on sale of second home depend on the state you live in and how long you’ve lived in the house. Qualifications for partial exclusions are favorable, especially in the cases where you have rented your property for a certain amount of time while treated it as a residence prior to that.
The duration of the time you have to live in your second home and then rent it out depends on your state – for more information, contact your lawyer to make sure you receive correct information.
Sell Your House to a Cash House Buying Company
Ready to sell your house FAST?
JRod Properties is a cash buying company, ready to take your property off your hands. The property you want to sell needs repairs? Doesn’t matter – we’ll be happy to sell it regardless of its state. Give me a call and you will receive a cash offer in just 24 hours. Your house can be sold in a week!
If you need to sell your rental house now, and would like to get a no-obligation cash offer, call us now at (559)481-1025. Whether you decide to sell your house to us or not, we would like to help answer questions you might have about the process.