Capital Gains Write Off

[Andrew Bergman]

Hello All!

My question is regarding the capital gains write off for an owner occupied residence. I understand that it is 500k for a married couple. My wife and I have lived in this residence for 1.5 years but have just purchased another home and we are contemplating moving but we don't want to lose our capital gains write off.  Is the write off prorated? (ie. 1.5 is 75% of 2 years so we could write off up to 75% of the 500K) Or do we have to live here the full two years to receive the benefit?  Any insight you have would be greatly appreciated.

[Meagan Barkley]

The benefit is actually an exclusion of gain, not a "write-off."

There are situations where a partial exclusion (a prorated exclusion as you mentioned) is allowed. You can read up on them here https://www.irs.gov/publications/p523/ar02.html#en_US_2015_publink10009003.