Archive for the ‘inherited’ Tag
Back to Basics – Part VIII – Schedule D
Filed under: Back to Basics | Tags: $3000, 1099-DIV, adjusted cost basis, bonds, business, capital assets, Capital Gains, capital losses, carryover, cost basis, distributions, Form 4797, Form 8949, gift, holding period, inherited, investments, long-term, mutual funds, personal, Schedule D, short-term, stocks
Comments (1) Originally published in the Cedar Street Times
January 23, 2015
Imagine yourself on Antiques Roadshow and they tell you that an old porcelain mug you found in your attic last summer is worth $8,000-$10,000 dollars! You are of course elated, and decide to sell the mug. Fast forward to February, and your accountant starts asking you questions about this sale, such as your adjusted cost basis and your holding period. You really have no idea how you even got it. You know it was in the family for a long time, and you think that maybe it was in a box of things your mom left for you when she moved to Palm Springs where she now resides. What do you do? I don’t know exactly, but I know this much – it will go on your Schedule D in some form.
In this issue, we are discussing Schedule D – Capital Gains and Losses. Prior articles are republished on my website at www.tlongcpa.com/blog if you would like to catch up on our Back to Basics series on personal tax returns.
Schedule D is used to report gains or losses from the sale or exchange of capital assets. Capital assets consist of a variety of things. The personal use items you own – such as your home, your vehicles, household items etc. are capital assets. Gains from the sale of personal items are taxed. Losses, however, are generally disallowed. Your personal investments such as stocks, bonds, or real property held as an investment are also capital assets. Gains and losses are allowed on personal investments.
The same types of items used in your trade or business, however, would be reported on a Form 4797 and would be taxed differently as well.
Assets that have a mix of personal use and business use can have elements reported on both forms.
To determine your gain or loss on a capital asset, you must know your cost basis in it. If it is something you bought, your cost basis is generally the amount you paid for it; if it is something you inherited, your cost basis is often the fair market value at the date of death; or if it was something given to you, your cost basis is generally the same as that of the prior owner.
There can also be adjustments to this basis, such as when you make improvements to your home – the money you spend would be an adjustment upwards. Once you know your adjusted cost basis, you simply subtract it from the sales price to determine your gain or loss. If you scrapped it, your sales price is zero. Sometimes it can be quite challenging to determine the cost basis, especially if records no longer exist. Technically, if you cannot prove your basis, the IRS can take the position that your basis is zero. This could be very unfavorable, especially if you just sold a $10,000 mug with unknown origins!
It is also important to know the length of your “holding period.” The date you purchase the property is generally the beginning of your holding period and the date you dispose of the property is the end of your holding period. For property received as a gift, you include the holding period of the person who gave it to you.
If your holding period is over a year, it is subject to favorable long-term capital gains rates – basically a 15 percent federal rate for most people. (Although it could be as low as zero percent or as high as 20 percent depending on your tax bracket and the amount of capital gains you have. Also, collectible items you sell such as old coins or antique vehicles are taxed at a 28 percent rate.) If your holding period for the asset is a year or less, it is considered a short-term holding and is taxed like ordinary income (a higher rate for most people). Inherited property is always considered to have a long-term holding period. California does not have a special rate for long-term holdings and treats all capital gains as ordinary income on its tax return.
As mentioned before, there is no deduction for losses on your personal use items. You can, however, take a loss on your personal investments. They would reduce any other capital gains, first, and then if there are still losses remaining, you can use $3,000 to offset any other type of income you have on your tax returns. The rest would get carried over to future years.
The Schedule D itself is essentially a summary of capital gain and loss activity that are mostly determined by other forms that feed into the Schedule D. Part I summarizes short-term gains and losses, and Part II summarizes long-term gains and losses. Form 8949 is the main supporting form used in both of these sections. It was added a few years ago after changes to broker cost basis reporting requirements occurred. The Form 8949 sorts out long-term and short-term transactions for which cost basis is reported to the IRS and not reported to the IRS, and handles the actual transactional reporting.
Parts I and II also have areas were short-term and long-term gains can be reported from other forms such as installment agreements, business casualty and theft losses, like-kind exchanges, as well as pass through entities such as partnerships, S-corporations, estates, and trusts. Long-term capital gains distributions from mutual funds on a 1099-DIV are reported in Part II. (Short-term capital gains distributions from mutual funds are actually included as ordinary dividends on the 1099-DIV, and are reported on Schedule B instead.) In addition, short-term and long-term loss carryovers from prior years are added into their respective parts on Schedule D.
Part III nets the short-term gains or losses against the long-term gains or losses. It then helps you determine the gain or loss to enter on the 1040. It also walks you through several worksheets to determine the amount of tax and tax rates you will pay on any gains.
So what would you do about the mug? Hopefully mom would have some recollection of the history. Maybe there was a somewhat recent time when it was passed by inheritance and would have received a step-up in basis. Of course, you should have figured that out before you sold it, and then had an appraisal done to support it! Otherwise, if it had just been gifted from one person to the next, the mug probably had very little if any cost basis, and you might be stuck with a big taxable gain.
In two weeks we will discuss Schedule E – Supplemental Income and Loss.
Travis H. Long, CPA is located at 706-B Forest Avenue, PG, 93950 and focuses on trust, estate, individual, and business taxation. He can be reached at 831-333-1041.
Gifts Given and Received – Taxable?
Filed under: General, Trusts and Estates | Tags: $14000, 709, basis, cost basis, estate tax exemption, Form 709, gift, Gift Tax, inherited, lifetime gifting, noncash
Leave a comment Originally published in the Cedar Street Times
December 27, 2013
I remember when I was growing up, every year for Christmas, my grandfather would send a check to my brother and I for $75 each. That seemed like an incredible amount of money to me at the time, and it really boosted my treasury each year! One of those years, I can remember going to the bank with my mom to cash the check, and wanting to see what $75 felt like in my own two hands; I asked the teller to give it to me…all in ones. She smiled, pulled some crisp ones from under her drawer, and counted them out for me. I had never felt a wad of bills like that in my hands! I tried folding them over, but I could not get them all in my pocket it was so thick, so I put them in lengthwise, and they just about stuck out the top of my pants pocket – I was a rich man!
After a week or so, we came back and deposited about half of them back into my bank account. My dad had always encouraged us to save half of whatever we received or earned when we were growing up. I admit, that ratio did not quite remain when I got into high school, and discovered a new and expensive hobby called, girls, but saving was ingrained in me. When I left for college I had a measurable chunk of change in my bank account.
Throughout those years, it never occurred to me to wonder about the tax implications of the gifts I received. Now, however, I think a lot about those things!
I do not know anyone that would hesitate to put a gift of $75 into his or her bank account. But if you throw two or three zeroes on the end, then I definitely get questions from people wondering if it they will have to pay tax. As the recipient of a gift, whether it is $75 or $75 million dollars, you do not have to pay taxes or report the receipt of the gift (with one exception that I can think of to be explained later). If you receive something other than cash, such as stocks, real estate, or tangible property, you could have tax if you sell it. The catch is that when you receive noncash gifts, you also receive the giftor’s cost basis, and when you sell you have taxable gain on the difference between the sales price and the cost basis. For example, if someone gives you a share of stock worth $100, and that person bought it for only $10, you have to pay tax on the $90 gain if you sell it.
If you put yourself in the shoes of the person giving the gift, there are different rules you need to follow. As long as you give less than $14,000 (2013 and 2014) a year in combined cash or noncash items to any one person, you have nothing to worry about, except providing the person evidence of your cost basis if the items are noncash items. (You are doing a disservice if you do not provide proof of cost basis, since the person you give the noncash items to could potentially be held liable for tax on the entire amount of the gift if they sell it, and cannot prove your cost basis – this is often overlooked.) You could give $14,000 to every person on earth each year and not have to file a gift tax return.
If you give $14,001 to just one person, then you have to file a Form 709 United States Gift Tax Return. The portion in excess of $14,000 per person is then subtracted from your combined gift and estate tax exemption (currently $5.25 million and indexed for inflation). For most people this is just an informational filing as they will never reach the limits, but it is required (and limits have gone up and down in the past). If you exceed the limits, however, the person giving the gift has a tax liability at a rate as a high as 40 percent. The only possible time I can think of that the IRS could pursue the recipient of a gift for taxes would be if the giftor gave away so much money that he or she had a tax liability and could not pay it. The IRS in that case, could pursue the person receiving a gift for tax.
Keep in mind that a gift is different from inheriting when someone passes away. You generally do not have tax on inherited amounts either, with the exception of tax liability on any earnings the assets you are entitled to accumulate between the date of the peron’s passing, and the date you receive the property. Your cost basis with inherited assets is also generally more favorable as the cost basis you receive is typically the fair market value at the date the person passed away, and not their old, often lower, cost basis.
Crafty minds will sometimes think of schemes to call income a gift since gifts are not taxable. Be careful of this – substance over form will rule the day. Yes, it would be nice if I would do your tax preparation for free, and you also happen to be kind enough to give me money, but it ain’t gonna fly!
Prior articles are republished on my website at www.tlongcpa.com/blog.
IRS Circular 230 Notice: To the extent this article concerns tax matters, it is not intended to be used and cannot be used by a taxpayer for the purpose of avoiding penalties that may be imposed by law.
Travis H. Long, CPA is located at 706-B Forest Avenue, PG, 93950 and focuses on trust, estate, individual, and business taxation. He can be reached at 831-333-1041.
Travis H. Long, CPA, Inc. Blog 