Calculating CGT after selling rural land.

 Author: JodieR_ATO(Community Support)Community Support

21 Nov 2022

Hi @mini696,

If you own the property jointly you'd both declare your 50% share.

The way you report this on your return depends on whether this was a business venture, or if you're an investor and you've sold vacant land. You can view this information from our Vacant land webpage. If you purchase land for use in a business or profit-making activity that deals in land, we treat any sale proceeds as ordinary income. You may need to register for goods and services tax (GST).

If you're an investor, the original purchase price will be used when calculating your CGT, and you'd need to look at elements of the cost base in relation to expenses you may be able to include. Once you've determined your cost base, you'd deduct this from your sale price, the difference will be your capital gain or loss.

For investment income you'd report your entire 50% proceeds from the sale at the Capital gains or losses section - Total capital gain label. If you owned the property for 12mnths+ you can then apply the 50% CGT discount. The discounted figure gets reported at the Net capital gain label. This is also the label we look at when determining your tax rate.

We'd also recommend you speak with a tax agent who can help you determine how this needs to be reported.