5 Tax Implications and Tips if You Flip Things for Profit

“Flip houses and make big bucks” scream the headlines. The premise is simple – buy real estate with little down, fix it up, and sell it quickly. What could be easier? Well, easy or not, one thing the promoters rarely tell you is that you’ll pay taxes on any profit you make if you are selling investment property and not the home you live in (your principal residence). 

If you flip houses or things like furniture for a profit, here are some tax implications and tips about your taxes, and possibly how to lower them:

Slow Down to Save Taxes. If you buy a house or condo, fix it up and then sell it in less than a year, you’ll pay taxes on the profit at ordinary income tax rates (10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, or 35%) based on your income. Hold it for more than a year and you’ll be taxed at the lower long-term capital gains rates (0%, 15%, or 20%), depending on your income. 

You may decide it is worth it to you to flip the property quickly, but if you get caught in a slower market and can’t unload it quickly, you’ll save a lot on your taxes by holding it more than a year.

Serial Investors Don’t Necessarily Get a Tax Break. There’s a rumor that you can sell a home and escape taxes by rolling the gain into a new property. That rule, however, hasn’t been around for almost 25 years, and even then applied only to personal residences. 

To get a tax break for gains on personal residence sales, you’ll have to move into the home and live there at least two years out of five years. If you do that when you sell, you can exclude $250,000 of the gain from tax (twice that if you are married filing jointly).

Sec. 1031 Exchange Rules. The only way you can avoid current tax when you sell investment property is through a “1031 exchange”, where you involve a third party, called an accommodator, to hold the money and buy a new property for you. But there are some rules you have to comply with: 

1. You can’t touch the money.
2. You have to identify the new like-kind real property within 45 days after property being given up is transferred and close within 180 days.
3. The new property has to cost at least as much as the old one.
4. You can’t be relieved of debt (so you can’t use the proceeds from the sale to buy a new property for all cash if the old property had debt tied to it).  
5. You will pay hefty fees to the accommodator to handle all this for you.

Flipping Houses as a Business. If you buy and sell property frequently, the IRS could decide that you are in the business of flipping houses and aren’t just an investor. If so, you’ll have to pay self-employment taxes of up to 15.3% on your profits, in addition to income taxes.

Buying and Selling Stuff Can Be Taxable Too. If you scout out bargains at flea markets and then sell the furniture and other finds on eBay (or a similar site), you’ll end up paying income taxes on the profits. If you do that just occasionally, you may not have to report the sale on your tax return. However, if you do it frequently, the IRS will consider you to be in a self-employed business since one of the requirements of owning your own business and claiming the income is if you are engaged in the business activity on a regular basis for a profit. 

How will the IRS know? eBay and similar sites issue Form 1099 to the IRS and sellers at tax time reporting their annual sales. If you make a profit, you’ll need to report it on your tax return and potentially end up paying sales taxes as well (depending on the rules in your state). 

Don’t worry about knowing the tax implications of flipping real estate for a profit when you file. No matter what moves you made last year, TurboTax will make them count on your taxes. Whether you want to do your taxes yourself or have a TurboTax expert file for you, we’ll make sure you get every dollar you deserve and your biggest possible refund – guaranteed.