Selling Your Home

The exclusion: up to $250,000 of gain if single, $500,000 married filing jointly — figures read from the tax-year tables — when you owned AND used the home for at least 2 of the last 5 years.

Basis is what you subtract from the sale price. Keep the proof forever: the Tax Passport 'Home File' checklist stores purchase documents and improvement receipts for decades, because the return where you need them may be 20 years from now.

Improvements raise basis; repairs generally do not. When in doubt, keep the receipt — storage is cheap, reconstruction is not.