There is a common saying that time heals almost everything. Yet, even as we embark on the fifth year since the pandemic began, most of
The Tax Minimizing Magic of Tidy Recordkeeping
Published Date : June 17, 2015
Who enjoys paying taxes? I think I can say confidently that the answer is no one. As covered in my article “All About That Basis,” an accurate record of the cost basis of your investments can help you minimize your tax bill when you dispose of an asset. The best and perhaps easiest way to do this is to stay organized and track your basis along the way. Below are some of the most common investment assets and what you should know about their basis.
- Cost Basis of your Personal Residence: The first $250k profit from the sale of your home is tax-free if you’re single and $500k if you’re married. With soaring Silicon Valley home prices, this will help with the ultimate tax bill but is not likely to eliminate it. In order to minimize Uncle Sam’s share of your profit, it pays to keep track of your basis as it changes over time. Your basis is initially fairly easy to calculate as it is simply the purchase price of the home plus a few extras like title insurance premiums, transfer taxes, and property inspection fees. Going forward, it can become a bit more complicated: the cost of any capital improvements that add value to your house or help adapt it to a new use, such as remodeling a kitchen, adding central air-conditioning, or even replacing a water heater, can be added to your basis. However, maintenance items like repairing a window or painting a room do not count as capital improvements.
- Cost Basis of your Investment Property: Like the basis for your personal residence, the initial basis for an investment property— like an office building — is the purchase price plus closing costs, attorney’s fees, inspection fees and any other miscellaneous fees. Capital improvements will add to your basis, so they need to be tracked as they occur. What is unique to investment property versus your home is that the IRS allows for a small write-off of the cost basis each year in the form of a depreciation deduction. This gradual reduction in the cost basis over time is intended to simulate the decrease in value of the property due to wear and tear or deterioration. If the investment property is later sold for more than the depreciated value, the IRS requires you to pay back some of the money you saved by claiming depreciation. This “recapture” amount can only be properly calculated by tallying up all of the depreciation you were entitled to take. Whether or not you actually claimed it is irrelevant – the IRS wants their cut.
- Bonds: Tracking the basis for stocks is fairly straightforward, which might lead you to believe that it is the same for bonds. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Here are some of the things you will need to know to determine your basis:
- Was the bond purchased at par, at a discount or at a premium?
- Did you hold the bond to maturity or sell it prior to maturity?
- Is it a tax-exempt or taxable bond?
For bonds purchased at par and held until maturity, the cost basis is simply the amount on your trade confirmation. For bonds purchased for more than par, the premium paid can be tax-deductible and amortized over the life of the bond. The cost basis of the bond is reduced each year by this amortized amount. For Sand Hill clients, this is now done automatically on our reports and on those of our custodians, Fidelity and Schwab. For all other situations — bonds purchased at a discount and sold before maturity for example — calculating your tax basis is more complicated. If this sounds confusing to you, there was some relief offered by 2008 legislation (Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008), which requires brokerage firms to track the cost basis on bonds purchased after January 1, 2014. For bonds prior to that date, it is best to check with your Sand Hill Wealth Manager or CPA for help.
If you have a filing cabinet full of receipts for home remodeling projects or old trade confirmations stacked up to the ceiling, now may be the time to dig in and see what you really need to keep to document your basis. It may not be as daunting as you think. With these guidelines, hopefully you can make some progress and easily maintain your records going forward.
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