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Old November 13th 05, 06:05 AM
Mike Rapoport
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Default Aircraft tax question


"George Patterson" wrote in message
news:BDxdf.1644$Pa4.1059@trndny01...
Ok, I know we have some tax experts out there. Tell me. When you sell an
aircraft, what taxes apply to the seller? Is this a capital gains/loss
situation? We're talking about an aircraft owned by and registered to a
private individual and used for pleasure.

George Patterson
Drink is the curse of the land. It makes you quarrel with your
neighbor.
It makes you shoot at your landlord. And it makes you miss him.




If you did not expense the costs of flying and did not depreciate it, I
would be inclined to leave it off your tax return. Figuring out your cost
basis after years of ownership would be very difficult if not impossible.
You can't deduct the loss on sale as that loss would be attributed to your
(personal, pleasure) use. I would just figure that the basis was equal to
the sale price, which is probably true anyway after you figure out what you
spent over the years on upgrading. Now if you bought a P51 in 1970 for 10K
and it sat in your barn until you sole it yesterday for a $990K gain, that
might be different. The only aircraft that I have sold were used for
business and the cost basis was easy to determine. I ended up recapturing
the depreciation as a gain.

Mike
MU-2