April 30 came and went. You picked out a home and have an accepted offer. Now what? Working with first time homebuyers this is a question that has come up quite a bit lately for me. What do you do now? Answer: You do nothing. You wait.
To qualify for the tax credit you need to CLOSE on the home. There is no way to claim the tax credit until that has happened. When it comes to filing for the credit, you have two options. You can re-file your tax return this year and include the form 5405, or you can file your tax return as usual in 2011 and claim the tax credit at that time. With either of these scenarios you will need to file manually and attach the HUD-1 Settlement Statement as proof that your purchased the home in the time frame required to be eligible for the tax credit.
This is information we’ve had since last year when the tax credit was extended. For anyone closing after April 30 the IRS site is not clear on what other documents it may need to prove that you had an accepted offer on April 30. At any rate you are not required to do anything right now. You still wait until after closing to claim the tax credit. You’ll probably need to add your signed and dated purchase agreement to the tax return, along with the HUD-1 Settlement Statement and the form 5405, but since the IRS hasn’t made that clear yet, that’s just an educated guess, not a fact.
Here’s a link to the IRS website with the most current information on claiming the tax credit on your tax return. I hope it will be updated in the coming weeks to give us more definitive information on what they will need as proof for the accepted offer.
I just had a question from a recent home buyer who closed on their house last week. After I mentioned that they could put in the paperwork to get the tax credit rebate, their Google search pulled up some old IRS instruction leaving them very confused. (imagine that)
“But Doug”, they wrote in an e-mail, “you said we could get the money in a couple of months, but now we read that we will have to file it next year. What’s up?”
A little researching helped me understand filing “2009 1040x” was the way to go to get the check in 2010. My blog post gives a little insight into what they needed to do so that they could get their $8,000 check.
Hi Doug ~ Neither of us are tax professionals, but at least we can point folks in the right direction. Many aren’t aware that they can file an amended tax return this year to claim the credit. Thanks for providing a link to the 1040X that’s required for that.