Update on Tax Reform - Sale of Personal Residence

[Matt Scholten]

Hi All, I was reading through the new proposed bill by the House Ways and Means committee on tax reform. There was an important change to the exclusion on the sale of a personal residence proposed that would affect people flipping houses. Currently if you live in a property as your primary residence for 2 out of the past 5 years you can qualify to exclude up to 500,000 in gain from the sale of that personal residence. However, the new proposed tax bill would change this to alter the holding period to 5 out of the past 8 years and would be phased out for those earning over 500,000. If passed in its current form this would become effective for all sales happening after 2017. See link to the House Ways and Means proposal here 

https://waysandmeansforms.house.gov/uploadedfiles/...

Interested to get peoples reactions on if this will stand and become enacted.