5% cap gain rate on sale of main home?(!)

Non-authoritative is the operative word. Simply put, the website is wrong. Capital gains rates are 0% or 15%.

Ira Smilovitz Le> A non-authoritative webpage titled "Long Term & Short Term Capital Gains Tax

I had asked the moderator to post an amended version of my questions instead, but it looks like I was not quick enough or there was understandable confusion.

I am only curious about the 5% rate if it applies to the gain of the sale of the main home. In other words, my first question really is....

Does the 5% rate apply to the taxable gain from the sale of the main home? Or does it only apply to other real estate (if at all)?

If it does not apply to the sale of the main home, and of course if the information is completely bogus in the first place, that is all I would need to know.

Once upon a time ago, in a universe far, far away, there was a 10%/20% rate for LT gains.

Then the gods of tax came upon this, and said, Come, let us make it even more complicated. And so they created, in addition to the 10/20 rate, a super long term (over 5 year holding period) 8/18 rate.

And some believers actually chose to have a deemed sale and repurchase in order to reset their holdings so as to qualify them for the super long term rate.

But the gods had not finished. They said, Lo, even 8/18 is not low enough to satisfy the rich who sacrifice to us, so let's create a

5/15 rate.

(Even though the 8/18-ers now realized they had been had.)

And for a while that was good.

But not as good as 0/15, and so they chose to let it be 0/15. And they called it good. And they also called it temporary.

And gods come and gods go, and it came to pass that this temporary 0/15 would soon expire and revert back to the 10/20.

Which meant the super long 8/18 would also reappear, for so it had been decreed long long ago.

But that was not to be and so the gods said we have seen 0/15 and it is good, so we shall restore it, but only temporarily.

So, dear readers, we are now living with a 0/15, but it's only temporary.

What's next?

No one, not even the gods of tax, know.

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I once saw a short movie clip called something like, "Who you are now, is where you were, then."

Our beliefs, our actions even our names, depend on that. So in the next couple of decades we will see many elderly ladies sitting on their nursing home rockers, trying to sneak in an occasional joint, and many of these grannies will be named Bambi and Stacey.

And some will remember that once, long ago, there was a 5/15 rate and ressurect it from a website in cyberspace somewhere. But is is ancient.

Do I sense sarcasm here?

Yep, we have 0/15 this year and next. Also, if your gain is large enough, it will push you into the 25% bracket, and thus the 0% rate will no longer apply. Or maybe it will apply to part of the gain.

wrote

Bu, bu, but.... I keep hearing about all these "tax breaks" for the super rich where they don't pay any taxes on their evil profits.

So how can it be that a higher tax rate could even apply as their income goes up, seeing as how there's all these "loopholes" for the "rich" folk.

**I'm from the South where "rich" means they own the land their double wide sits on.

[....] [....]

Cute! I realize that tax law changes about as often as congresscritters change their underwear. But since the webpage was specifically titled "[for] 2011, 2012", I wondered if Congress had passed some legislation in

2010 that I was not aware of, perhaps part of their solution to improve the plight of people forced to sell homes they can no longer afford.

Apparently not. Thanks for such a humorous confirmation.