If you have turned your primary residence into a rental, a second home or a vacation home and are planning to sell it, you should be aware of a new law that changes how capital gains are calculated beginning January 1, 2009. You may want to change your strategy while there is still time.

The Current Law.

Currently, the law excludes up to $250,000 ($500,000 if married filing a joint return) of gain realized on the sale or exchange of a primary residence. The sale of a home qualifies for this exclusion if the home was the primary residence of the tax payer for at least two of the five years ending on the date of sale or exchange. The exclusion applies even if the home was originally purchased as a second home.

The New Law.

Rethink your strategy because on January 1, 2009, the rules will change. President Bush signed The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (H.R. 3221) on July 30, 2008. The tax law name of this same law is The Housing Assistance Tax Act of 2008. This law will generate tax revenue by reducing the home sale exclusion, but it also provides a friendly transition for taxpayers.

The law does not allow a taxpayer to claim exclusion for any period of time after December 31, 2008, in which the home is not the main home of the taxpayer. The available exclusion is apportioned in the ratio that the period the home was the primary residence (qualifying use) bears to the period of ownership after December 31, 2008. Any nonqualifying use that occurred prior to January 1, 2009 is ignored. The maximum excludable amount remains at $250,000 or $500,000, depending on your marital status.

An Example.

If a homeowner purchased a house in 2009 for their main home, turned it into a rental property in 2012 and sold it 2014, the property would not have been used as a primary residence for 2 years of the five years it was owned (or 40% unqualified use). Under these circumstances, 40% of the gain realized from the sale would be subject to capital gains tax. The remaining 60% of the gain would be excluded up to the maximum amount allowed. Read the rest of this entry »

A Qualified Personal Residence Trust (QPRT) is an excellent tool for persons with large estates to transfer a principal residence or vacation home at the lowest possible gift tax value. The general rule is that if a person makes a gift of property in which he or she retains some benefit, the property is still valued (for gift tax purposes) at its full fair market value. In other words, there is no reduction of value for the donor’s retained benefit.

In 1990, to ensure that a principal residence or vacation residence could pass to heirs without forcing a sale of the residence to pay estate taxes, Congress passed the QPRT legislation. That legislation allows an exception to the general rule described above. As a result, for gift tax purposes, a reduction in the residence’s fair market value is allowed for the donor’s retained interest.

For example, assume a father, age 65, has a vacation residence valued at $1 million. He transfers the residence to a QPRT and retains the right to use the vacation residence (rent free) for 15 years. At the end of the 15 year term, the trust will terminate and the residence will be distributed to the grantor’s children. Alternatively, the residence can remain in trust for the benefit of the children. Assuming a 3% discount rate for the month of the transfer to the QPRT (this rate is published monthly by the IRS), the present value of the future gift to the children is only $396,710. This gift, however, can be offset by the grantor’s $1 million lifetime gift tax exemption. If the residence grows in value at the rate of 5% per year, the value of the residence upon termination of the QPRT will be $2,078,928.

Assuming an estate tax rate of 45%, the estate tax savings will be $756,998. The net result is that the grantor will have reduced the size of his estate by $2,078,928, used and controlled the vacation residence for 15 additional years, utilized only $396,710 of his $1 million lifetime gift tax exemption, and removed all appreciation in the residence’s value during the 15 year term from estate and gift taxes.

While there is a present lapse in the estate and generation-skipping transfer taxes, it’s likely that Congress will reinstate both taxes (perhaps even retroactively) some time during 2010. If not, on January 1, 2011, the estate tax exemption (which was $3.5 million in 2009) becomes $1 million, and the top estate tax rate (which was 45% in 2009) becomes 55%.

Even though the grantor must forfeit all rights to the residence at the end of the term, the QPRT document can give the grantor the right to rent the residence by paying fair market rent when the term ends. Moreover, if the QPRT is designed as a “grantor trust” (see below), at the end of the term, the rent payments will not be subject to income taxes to the QPRT nor to the beneficiaries of the QPRT. Essentially, the rent payments will be tax-free gifts to the beneficiaries of the QPRT – further reducing the grantor’s estate. Read the rest of this entry »