# What's your experience on capital gains tax when selling a car?



## MishaS91 (4 mo ago)

I want to write an article on calculating capital gains when an individual sells a car in different countries. I need various sources from as many countries as possible, something like this How To Calculate And Report Your Capital Gains In 2022 | Navexa to get started. Please share info in the comments and please make it car-related if you can. 

For now, I know you shouldn't pay CGT unless you used a car for business purposes, but that's the info for UK. I'm curious to know more about the US laws, then Japan, China, and some other European countries.

P.S. I know I can just visit the official sites, but these are often complex to look into and take a lot of time to explore. Plus, I only know English, so I wouldn't be able to translate info from many countries. Any real experience is also greatly appreciated.


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## elelegido (Sep 24, 2014)

MishaS91 said:


> I want to write an article on calculating capital gains when an individual sells a car in different countries.
> 
> P.S. I know I can just visit the official sites, but these are often complex to look into and take a lot of time to explore.


If the government-published information online is too difficult for you to understand, then you don't understand capital gains tax. And it you don't understand capital gains tax, I don't see how you are going to write an article about it. 

Also, if you don't have the time available to do the research, then that's another barrier to writing your article.

Finally, if you're going to write your article based on what random people on an internet forum say, then quality of information is not guaranteed.

It strikes me that this is most likely school or college homework or a similar project and you want to take a few shortcuts and have other people give you the content for the piece of work. I would not be interested in helping with that, however I can certainly point you in the right direction and recommend that you consult online the tax codes of each country you are interested in.


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## Heisenburger (Sep 19, 2016)

How will you know that we aren't poisoning the well?


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## Ted Fink (Mar 19, 2018)

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but capital gains would only apply if selling a car for more than it was purchased for? is that correct?


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## elelegido (Sep 24, 2014)

Ted Fink said:


> Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but capital gains would only apply if selling a car for more than it was purchased for? is that correct?


Overall capital gain (i.e. profit) is the determinant. For example, if one buys a painting for $10,000, spends $1,000 restoring it and then sells it for $11,000 then, although the item was sold for more than the purchase price, the profit was $0, therefore no CGT would be payable.

As far as selling cars goes, in the UK and Ireland, for example, CGT is never payable on private cars that are not used for business purposes. But I have no idea if that exemption exists in the US. Even if there is no exemption, I can't see anyone reporting this kind of profit on their tax return.


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## Uberyouber (Jan 16, 2017)

elelegido said:


> If the government-published information online is too difficult for you to understand, then you don't understand capital gains tax. And it you don't understand capital gains tax, I don't see how you are going to write an article about it.
> 
> Also, if you don't have the time available to do the research, then that's another barrier to writing your article.
> 
> ...


⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐


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## ptuber18 (Dec 28, 2018)

If you sell a car for more than you bought it then you are liable for capitol gains tax. The rub is: If sell it for less than you paid you cannot take a loss for any item that is for personal use.


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