Part year resident state taxes and real property capital gains

Mar 18, 2008 2 Replies

May real property gains (e.g. from sale of residency above exclusion amount) be subject to double taxation (taxed by two states)? Or can one avoid this problem?



Several states seem to tax income based on income received while a resident, plus capital gains from "sources within" the state while a nonresident (CA's phraseology), or from "[state] sources" (NY's phraseology). NY is even clearer in saying that this includes income you received while you were a non-resident that came from "property located in New York State".



So it looks like you can get double taxed on gain from sale of real property if you move from one state to another, and the sale is completed after one changes residency. This, because the old state (where the property sits) will tax the gain independent of current residency, and the new state will tax the gain if it is realized when you are a new resident. The only obvious way I see to avoid double taxation of the gain is to complete the sale before residency changes.



Have I missed something here? Thanks.



Mark Freeland snipped-for-privacy@sbcglobal.net


The only thing you missed that I can think of is that usually the state taxing the income based on your residency will give you a credit for the tax paid to the state taxing it based on the property location. The same usually holds true whenever two states are taxing the same income, for example, a Kansan working in Missouri.

"Mark Freeland" wrote

Yeah.

Generally the state of residency will give you a credit for taxes paid to the other state. While it most often is limited to the lower of the amount of tax paid _or_ the amount of tax that your resident state would have imposed on that amount of income, it may not seem like it eliminates the double taxation, it does do just that.

Check with the resident state to see how you compute the "other state(s) tax credit".

Join the Discussion

Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.

Didn't find your answer?

Ask the community — no account required