This came up again today during my market update for a real estate company I work with and was surprised how many of the agents did not know the details of this Act that was passed by Congress and signed by President Bush late last year in 2007.
As you many of you were aware, in the past when a homeowner had a devastating financial loss and their home either went into foreclosure or the home was sold on a short sale, the IRS was nice enough to step in and tax them on their loss. Meaning, if you purchased a $400,000 home and you took out 100% financing over a year ago and you were about to lose your home now but were able to find a buyer for $350,000 as a short sale, the $50,000 loss you had would then be reported as income on your tax return.
Talk about adding salt to the wound or insult to injury, the IRS was relentless on this. Can you imagine losing your job, or having a major medical issue where you were going to lose your home and you find out after your home has been taken back and whatever else you lose emotionally and financially, your CPA breaks the news to you that you now have $50,000 of extra reportable income that you had not been taxed on.
Fun stuff,not. Well fortunately the government did something right in my opinion. With the mortgage meltdown with subprime and Alt-A mortgages as well as a drop in real estate values, it became the perfect storm for the new home owner to lose their home if proper planning and strategy were not put into place.
Long story short, now if you lose your home on a short sale or foreclosure the loss, or gain as the IRS sees it, will no longer apply, at least for the remaining calendar year in 2008 and 2009.
A few caveats though, it must be your primary residence and the amount that is "forgiven" is the original accusation indebtedness or the adjusted AI after home upgrades or a remodel.
What is not covered, money used above and beyond the "purchase money" loan/s. So for example, let's say you purchased your home 3 years ago for $400,000 with a 20% down payment and it had appreciated by $50,000 early in 2007, 2 years after the purchase. Your value reached $450,000 with $130,000 of equity trapped in your home so you decided to pull out $100,000 for investments bringing your financed home loans up to $420,000.
Well our little market readjustment occurs and now you are in the summer of 2008, you haven't closed a transaction in 3 months and you have to let your home go on a short sale at $390,000. The simple math that the IRS will calculate is a loss to the bank of $30,000 or a gain or income to you of the same amount.
In case I lost you, even though you purchased your home for $400,000, since you chose to put down 20% or $80,000, your original accusation indebtedness remained at $320,000 and the new $100,000 you pulled out was not used for home improvement or a remodel, which is not "forgivable" debt.
I hope this helps. Of course, the safe thing to do is to always refer your clients to a trusted referral partner from your team in a CPA or LTC as we are not qualified to give tax advice, but we can certainly recommend direction based on our experience and knowledge.
Here is the IRS link for your own research. http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=179414,00.html
Be Blessed!
Travis
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Travis, also, even without the debt relief act, if the homeowner is insolvent the CPA can use that to offset the IRS amount owed. But you must speak to your CPA or tax attorney about this. We do get referrals for short sale listings from tax attorneys.Good post.