What tax mistakes should be avoided when selling an apartment

When selling real estate, the owner strives to get the maximum benefit and reduce the cost of paying taxes. We suggest considering the main tax mistakes that should be avoided when selling an apartment or house.

Understating the cost

As you know, if the property has been owned for less than five years, but you need to pay tax when selling. Therefore, many owners are trying to minimize the cost of their housing as much as possible, indicating in the contract an amount of no more than 1 million rubles, which is not taxed. If 10 years ago it was quite possible to deceive the tax service in this way, today the system has changed and the cadastral value of real estate is necessarily taken into account when calculating taxes. The price of real estate for sale should not be lower than the cadastral value multiplied by a coefficient of 0.7.

It is from this amount that tax payments will be calculated, even if the contract specifies a lower cost.

General tax for all owners

If a house or apartment has several owners, everyone pays the tax in proportion to their share. Penalties will be applied to the person evading payment.

Incorrect calculation of the tax amount

To correctly calculate the amount of tax that you will have to pay if you decide to sell a property earlier than 3-5 years of ownership, you need to deduct the income received from the sale from the purchase price of the property.

For example, you bought an apartment for 4 million, and a year later you sold it for 4.5 million, you need to pay tax from 500 thousand.

Confusion with the terms of ownership

The owner of the property is fully exempt from paying taxes only if the period of ownership of housing is 5 years. But there are some exceptions in which you can avoid paying taxes after three years of ownership: Housing is the only one - not only for the owner, but also for his spouse. The apartment or house was inherited from relatives of the first order. The right of ownership came as a result of privatization. The property came into possession on the basis of a lifetime annuity.

In all other cases that do not apply to exceptions, you will have to pay tax.

No payment at assignment

It is often possible to meet the erroneous misconception that it is not necessary to pay tax when conducting an assignment transaction, because the ownership right has not yet arisen. In fact, you need to pay 13% of the difference between the value of the real estate by assignment and the equity agreement. For example, if the share was bought for 2 million, and sold for 2.5 million, you need to pay tax from 500 thousand.