Thinking of selling your home sometime in the next couple years? If so, consider this: In order to try and pay for all the goodies included in Obamacare, Congress created a 3.8 % Medicare surtax on investment income starting in 2013. This surtax is placed on top of the normal tax on all investment income, including capital gains, for singles with Adjusted Gross Income over $200k, or married couples with AGI over $250k.
So, if you sell a home in 2013 that was a principal residence and your gain exceeds the $250k/$500k exclusion amount, any gain will likely be taxed at capital gains rates PLUS the 3.8% surtax. It’s even worse on a second residence as there is no exclusion available for gains on sales of homes that aren’t a principal residence.
So if you are considering selling your home soon, you may want to plan to have the sale close before January 1, 2013 in order to avoid something other than termites taking a chunk out of it.