this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2024

125 points (79.1% liked)

News

23266 readers

3022 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

125

Boomers wanting to downsize face huge tax bills (www.cnn.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

165 comments fedilink hide all child comments

After 33 years and four children, Baby Boomers Marta and Octavian Dragos say they feel trapped in what was once their dream home in El Cerrito, California.

Both over 70, the Dragos are empty nesters, and like many of their generation, they’re trying to figure out how to downsize from their 3,000-square-foot, five-bedroom home.

“We are here in a huge house with no family nearby, trying to make a wise decision, both financially and for our well-being,” said Dragos, a retired teacher.

But selling and downsizing isn’t easy, appealing or even financially advantageous for many homeowners like the Dragos family.

Many Boomers whose homes have surged in value now face massive capital gains tax bills when they sell. This is a kind of tax on the profit you make when selling an investment or an asset, like a home, that has increased in value.

Plus, smaller homes or apartments in the neighborhoods they’ve come to love are rare. And with current prices and mortgage rates so high, there is often a negligible cost difference between their current home and a smaller one.

(page 2) 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 31 points 9 months ago (5 children)

This is nonsense. The tax-free allowance is massive and they're only required to pay tax on all the free money, nothing they actually earned.

If there was 100% capital gains tax on all domestic property, we wouldn't have all that free money pushing up the cost of housing for everyone.

Most homeowners don’t have to pay capital gains on their home when they sell. Thanks to tax legislation from the ’90s, a gain of up to $250,000 for a single tax filer or $500,000 for a couple filing jointly is exempt from tax. That’s providing the sale is of the homeowner’s primary residence and that they meet other requirements such as living in the property for two of the past five years.

load more comments (5 replies)

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Guess they are using the alternate definition of trapped. They of course could rent the house and use the rent money to rent/buy thier new place and probably have a little profit at the same time.

load more comments (4 replies)

[–] [email protected] 100 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

So they pay those taxes with the gains from the sale? What's the fucking problem?

But unless this is a 2nd home, I don't think they'll pay anything unless it's over some high amount.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (4 children)

If they're in California, they might have gains of over a million dollars. The exemption cuts off at $500k of total gains; anything beyond that has to have taxes paid.

So they're whining about paying taxes on a million dollar capital gain. They can go fuck themselves.

load more comments (4 replies)

[–] [email protected] 52 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ya to me this sounds more like people complaining they aren't making as much money as they want to?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago

Hey they earned those gains through privilege and luck!

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] [email protected] 44 points 9 months ago (2 children)

A 3000 sqft house in CA? Going to guess they would be making a ton off that. Couple that with the years and years of property taxes being taxed at below the appraised value and I am going to say I don't have much sympathy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

We bought our 1800 sqft house in Sacramento for almost 600k 2 years ago, when it was worth less than half that the last time it was appraised in 2008. We were at least fortunate enough to get a 30 year loan at 3.3% but we will NEVER see property taxes as low as many of our neighbors who have lived there for 20+ years.

My parents are selling their house in a couple of years in order to move closer to us. They'll easily get over a million for it and then they'll turn around and use that money to buy a house for 500k in cash. Yeah, they'll take a hit in taxes but they will still have plenty left for buying the new house outright (so no mortgage), plus doing some additional renovations that my dad wants to do in order to have his dream kitchen.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] [email protected] 120 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yeah no sympathy for large taxes on massive capital gains. Especially capital gains from the massive increase in housing costs

[–] [email protected] 78 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Seriously, wtf are they whining about. "If I subtract the money we paid from the current market value of our house we get such a nice number, but now we have to lose 14% of that 😭😭😭😭"

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

I will never tire of people showing us exactly what kind of people they are going to be when they grow up.

load more comments