Capital Gains

A capital asset is a profit you make from the sale of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, property, your home, or other possessions. If you purchase a personal possession for whatever base price, for example a piece of property for $10,000 and sell it for $15,000, your capital gain will be $5,000.

Capital Losses

A capital loss is when you lose money on the sale of a personal possession. We’ll use the same example as above, if you purchased the land for $10,000 and sold it for $5,000, your capital loss will be $5,000.

Long-Term Short-Term

Does it matter when you sell the possession? It sure does! The tax on short term is much higher than on long term. Short term capital gains are defined as purchase and then sell in less than one year. Long term capital gains are defined as purchase and then sell in one full calendar year or longer. Short term tax rates can be as high as 35%. Ouch! On the other hand, long term tax rates can be 0% to 15%. Personally, I prefer the later tax rate myself.

Calculating Capital Gains

 I want to know exactly where I stand when it comes to calculating my capital gains and losses. If you would like to use the capital gains tax calculator then, give Turbo Tax Premier a try. They have a calculator you can use to run your tax return numbers. I trust the software completely to calculate my profits and losses. First of all, the losses are subtracted from the gains, which helps in that category. If your short term losses exceed your gains then, up to $3,000 of losses can be deducted from other kinds of income.  Turbo Tax has over 350 deductions it calculates through to see if you qualify to claim the deduction.

Optimize Capital Gains and Losses

Using the online tax preparation tax return software has helped me to have the best taxable income amount possible. I used to miss so many deductions that I didn’t know I qualified for. TurboTax Online has earned a #1 rating from companies we know and trust. I certainly don’t have the time to keep up with the constantly changing tax laws. Leave the updating to the tax experts and give the capital gains tax calculator a try today. Tax experts are standing by ready to help you today!