How much are you allowed to gain from the sale of stock before you must pay capital gains tax on it? Uncle Sam's hand is out as soon as you make your first dollar. However, you can offset some of the gain with any losses from sales of stock. So if you've made a bundle on Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) and have lost a bundle on Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ:SUNW), you can eke out a bit of a benefit from the loss.
Things are a little different with your home, though. If you've lived in it as your primary residence for at least two of the five years preceding its sale, you may be eligible for a whopping windfall, courtesy of Uncle Sam. You may actually get to keep the first $250,000 of gain on the home -- tax-free! It gets even better if you're married. Together, a qualifying couple selling a home can keep half a million dollars of gain -- tax-free. That's not chicken feed!
Learn the ins and outs of capital gains and losses in this article on our Tax Center -- where you can learn about all kinds of other tax topics. (This set of articles will help you understand the home sale exclusion rules.) For answers to the many other tax questions keeping you up at night, drop by our Tax Strategies discussion board. Seriously -- don't neglect learning about taxes. Failing to learn some things can unnecessarily cost you tens of thousands of dollars.
