Home Sales Tax | Snopes.com

CLAIM:   A provision of "Obamacare" health care legislation creates a 3.8% Medicare tax on real estate transactions. ------------------------- MIXTURE OF TRUE AND FALSE

INFORMATION: FALSE: Health care legislation imposes a 3.8% tax on all home sales.   TRUE: Health care legislation imposes a 3.8% transaction tax on profits over the capital gains threshold.

------------------------- EXAMPLE:   _[Collected via e-mail, April 2010]_ 3.8% tax on real estate transactions Under the new health care bill - did you know that all real estate transactions

are subject to a 3.8% "Sales Tax"? You can thank Nancy, Harry & Barack (and your local Congressmen) for this one. If you sell your $400,000 home, this will be a $15,200 tax.

Remember Obama’s battle cry — take from the workers and give to the drones. TAX ON HOME SALES Imposes a 3.8 percent tax on home sales and other real estate transactions. Middle-income people

must pay the full tax even if they are "rich" for only one day — the day they sell their house and buy a new one.   ORIGINS:   One of the provisions in the reconciliation bill (HR

4872) passed in conjunction with the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act (PPACA) health care legislation calls for high-income households to be subject to a new 3.8% Medicare tax on

investment income starting in 2013: The PPACA creates a new Code Section 1411, which will generally impose a 3.8 percent tax on the lesser of "net investment income" or the excess

of modified adjusted gross income over a "threshold amount" (generally, $250,000 for taxpayers filing a joint return, $125,000 for married taxpayers filing a separate return and

$200,000 in all other cases). Net investment income generally means the excess of (i) interest, dividends, annuities, royalties, rents, income from passive activities, income from trading

financial instruments and commodities, and gain from the disposition of certain non-business property, over (ii) allowable deductions properly allocable to such income. In determining the

amount of net investment income, special rules apply with respect to dispositions of equity interests in certain partnerships and S corporations, and to distributions from certain qualified

plans. This additional tax applies to taxable years beginning after December 31, 2012. This is a complicated section of a complicated piece of legislation, and the 3.8% Medicare tax has been

frequently misreported as amounting to a 3.8% "sales tax" on all real estate transactions. This is incorrect: the Medicare tax is not a sales tax, nor does it apply to all real

estate transactions; it is a tax on investment income (income which may or not derive from the sale of property) only for persons who earn more than the amounts specified in the bill. First

of all, the Medicare tax will be imposed only on individuals with an income above $200,000 and couples with a joint income more than $250,000, a figure which currently excludes about 97% of

all U.S. households. Second, the tax will not be assessed on every house sale, but only on real estate transactions that produce profits over a specified dollar amount. As Sara Orrange,

Government affairs director of the Spokane Association of Realtors noted in response to a repetition of the "sales tax" rumor in the Spokane _Spokesman-Review_: In his recent guest

column regarding the impact of the health care bill, Paul Guppy of the Washington Policy Center claimed that a 3.8 percent tax on all home sales was a part of the recently passed

legislation. This is inaccurate and needs to be corrected. The truth about the bill is that if you sell your home for a profit above the capital gains threshold of $250,000 per individual or

$500,000 per couple then you would be required to pay the additional 3.8 percent tax on any gain realized over this threshold. Most people who sell their homes will not be impacted by these

new regulations. This is not a new tax on every seller, and that correction needs to be made. This tax is aimed at so-called "high earners" — if you do not fall into that category

you will not pay any extra taxes upon the sale of your home. For example, let's assume that a couple with an income of $325,000 bought a house in 2004 for $300,000 and resold it in

2013 for $850,000, thus producing a $550,000 profit. Since U.S. law allows a couple to exclude from their gross income profits of up to $500,000 from the sale of their principal residence,

the taxable gain from this sale would be $50,000 (i.e., a $550,000 profit minus the $500,000 exclusion), and the couple's taxable income would now be $375,000 (i.e., the original

$325,000 plus the $50,000 of taxable profit from their home sale). The 3.8% Medicare tax would now apply to whichever of the following dollar figures is the lesser: In case (a), the dollar

figure would be the couple's taxable income ($375,000) minus the income threshold level ($250,000), or $125,000. In case (b), the dollar figure would be amount of taxable income gained

from the sale of their home, which, as detailed above, was $50,000 (i.e., $550,000 profit minus the $500,000 exclusion). The second dollar amount is the lesser of the two, and therefore the

couple would have to pay an additional tax of 3.8 percent of $50,000, which would amount to $1,900. (If the hypothetical couple had realized less than a $500,000 profit on the sale of their

residence, none of that gain would be subject to the 3.8% tax.) The referenced tax is therefore not a tax on all real estate sales; it is an investment income tax which could result in a

very small percentage of home sellers paying additional taxes on home sales profits over a designated threshold amount. In short, if you're a "high earner" and you sell your

home at a substantial profit, you might be required to pay an additional 3.8% tax. However, given that only about 3% of U.S. households have incomes that exceed the specified income

threshold amount, the existing home sale capital gains exclusion on a principal residence ($250,000 for individuals, $500,000 for couples) still stands, and the national median existing-home

price in January 2012 was only $154,700 , the Medicare tax will likely affect only a very small percentage of home sellers when it is implemented in 2013. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: LAST

UPDATED:   15 March 2012 ------------------------- SOURCES: *     Donmoyer, Ryan J. and James Rowley.   "Health Bill Would Add 3.8% Tax on Investment Income."     _BusinessWeek_.

  18 March 2010. *     Sahadi, Jeanne.   "Medicare Tax Hikes: What the Rich Will Pay."     _CNNMoney.com_.   25 March 2010.