Selling Home-Capital Gains Tax?

[schmidt2301]

Looking for some expert advice on selling my home in regards to Capital Gains Tax. I bought my house on 10/23/15 for $147,500 and now that I'm getting married (12/2/2017) I need to sell it. I listed my house FSBO and reached an agreement with a couple two weeks ago for a sales price of $156,000. The couple's financing is a VA loan and we set an original close date of 10/24/17 which would clear me of the required two year window to avoid Capital Gains Tax. The buyer called today and basically said her husband doesn't have much longer to live and needs to close as soon as possible to ensure the VA loan goes through since he is the veteran. My question is where does that put me on Capital Gains Tax? If we close on the 15th, do I have to pay a full 20% on the profit being just 9 days short of the two year minimum? Looking for some guidance on my best option.

Really want to sell to this buyer as I have no realtor fees, they asked for no allowances (carpet could stand to be replaced), and didn't ask for inspection to point out other little pesky cost items.

[ricepig]

There's no capital tax gain on profit up to $250,000 on an individual selling their home,  unless they've changed it lately.

[HawgWild]

FWIW - I believe that it's a one time deduction.

[widespreadsooie]

You're gonna pay tax on your gain if you haven't lived there for 2 years.

[Karma]

Surely you made improvements of some type that would up your basis. Effectively you are talking about 15% on a very small amount.

[TheJoeyBucketz]

In certain cases, you can treat part of your profit as tax-free even if you don't pass the two-out-of-five-years tests. A reduced exclusion is available if you sell your house before passing those tests because of a change of employment, or a change of health, or because of other unforeseen circumstances, such as a divorce or multiple births from a single pregnancy. So if you need to move to a bigger place to find room for the triplets, the law won't hold it against you.

That's copy and paste from Turbo Tax, so tifwiw.

If any of that applies to you then you may get a big break, since you're so close to 2 years and the deduction looks like it's proportimal to the time you've lived there.

Go pay an accountant for an hour of his time, is my opinion.

[hog.goblin]

In certain cases, you can treat part of your profit as tax-free even if you don't pass the two-out-of-five-years tests. A reduced exclusion is available if you sell your house before passing those tests because of a change of employment, or a change of health, or because of other unforeseen circumstances, such as a divorce or multiple births from a single pregnancy. So if you need to move to a bigger place to find room for the triplets, the law won't hold it against you.

That's copy and paste from Turbo Tax, so tifwiw.

If any of that applies to you then you may get a big break, since you're so close to 2 years and the deduction looks like it's proportimal to the time you've lived there.

Go pay an accountant for an hour of his time, is my opinion.

This

You may qualify for a prorated exclusion

And, as others said, by the time you add certain closing fees from the purchase and commissions and certain closing fees on the sale you might not even have a gain