Covering Your Basis

When selling an asset such as a stock, you owe capital gains tax on the difference between the sale price and what you paid for it, which is your cost basis.  Yet, if you inherit certain assets, including marketable securities, you can “step up” their tax basis to whatever they were worth at the benefactor’s death.  This means highly appreciated inherited stock can be sold immediately with no capital gains, or later, when all the gains before you inherited are not counted.

There are several ways to minimize capital gains tax.  One includes making charitable donations.  For gifts of marketable securities to a public charity, donors are entitled to an income tax deduction for up to 30 percent of adjusted gross income if the stock is held for more than a year. 

Another tax-planning tool is to convert a Traditional IRA to a Roth.  Although you must pay income tax on the amount you are converting, after that no income tax is collected on distributions by you or your heirs.  Moreover, any withdrawals by you or your heirs do not get added to taxable income. 

Finally, married couples who live in a community property state have a basis advantage.  Most of what you acquire once you are married and living in a community property state, you and your spouse are each considered a half-owner.  Thus, when the first spouse dies, both halves of the property get a step up in basis, effectively minimizing capital gains tax if the surviving spouse sells the property.

See Deborah L. Jacobs, What Every Investor Needs to Know About Basis, Morningstar, March 25, 2015.