Reporting Real Estate Sales

Profits made from the sale of real estate must be reported.

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Reporting real estate sales: Schedule D

The profits from selling real estate that is not your primary residence are fully taxable as a capital gain.

Your profit is calculated by reducing the amount you sold your house for by the cost of the sale and the cost of the house.

If this amount is over the maximum excludable amount you must claim capital gains on Schedule D.

If you sold your house at a loss, you are not entitled to a deduction.

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Related capital gain and capital loss IRS publications

You can get more information about capital gains taxes directly from the IRS, in the form of IRS Publication 550.

If you file a paper return, you will also have to fill out Schedule D and possibly Schedule D-1. If you file electronically, all this will be taken care of for you electronically.

Note: you will need an Adobe Acrobat Reader to view these publications, which you can get here. (But you probably already have it.)