Help How to record property sale?

Hi, Steve.

You need to do two things:

1. Determine your net selling price. That would be the sale price, less expenses of making the sale (such as fees for recording documents at the courthouse, appraisal fees, attorney fees, etc.) if you had to pay any of those. It doesn't matter if those amounts were deducted from the sale proceeds or if you paid them separately. Amounts that you would have had to pay even if you kept the property (such as real estate taxes to the date of sale) are not selling expenses; these would be deducted on your return in the same way that you deducted them in prior years. If you received a settlement statement (from the attorney, lender, broker or other party), that should provide a road map to help you determine the net selling price.

1. Determine your "adjusted basis" in the property. This is usually the price you paid - no matter how long ago - plus the cost of any improvements you made over the years. "Improvements" don't include repairs and maintenance; those are operating expenses that might be deductible in the years you paid them. If any part of the property was depreciable, you'll have to deduct any depreciation "allowed or allowable" for all the years you held the property to determine your adjusted basis. Again, if there was a settlement statement, it would provide a good starting point.

Then just report both (1) and (2) on Schedule D of your Form 1040 and follow the instructions to determine your capital gain (or loss). I've not used the tax planner in so many years that my advice on that would be sheer guesswork, so I won't comment on the mechanics of that.

If you need more details, you'll have to tell us more about the property and the purchase and sale transactions. For example, if this was "property used in a trade or business", as opposed to property held for investment or for personal use, then you might need to report it initially on a form other than Schedule D:.

RC

Appreciate your comments, I have done all that using an asset account, my problem is how do I properly enter the information in Q2006 so it will feed it to the Tax Center and show the projected (estimated) taxes remaining due? It's the mechanics of that, that I need some guidance with.

Steve

You can try editing the account's details, Tax Schedule Info, and in the drop-down menu for Transfers Out, select the appropriate tax form. I don't use the Quicken tax planner much except to give me a very general idea, and even then it requires manual adjusting. .............................. Don't worry about what people think; they don't do it very often.