Three assets, one tax rule

Published 2026-09-28 · Last reviewed 2026-09-28

A sale is a sale, but the tax on it is not one number. Whether you are selling stock, a home or a cryptocurrency, the same three inputs decide what the gain costs: what you paid for it, how long you held it, and what your other income already is. This page prices one of each - a stock gain held long and held short, a home sale with the Section 121 exclusion, and a crypto gain on the same ladder - all from the engine the calculators run.

Stocks: the holding period is a second tax rate

Take a single filer with $60,000 of ordinary taxable income. Selling a position with a $50,000 long-term gain is priced on the preferential ladder: the gain is stacked on top of that ordinary income, and from $60,000 every dollar of gain sits in the 15 percent band, so the whole $50,000 costs $7,500 - an effective 15.0 percent on the gain. Sell the same position before a year is up and it stops being special: the gain is ordinary income, and the same $50,000 costs $11,086, an effective 22.2 percent. Holding on for a year or more is therefore a tax decision worth $3,586 on this example alone.

A home: the exclusion comes off before the ladder

A home is the one sale where the law helps before the ladder starts. For a single filer who owned and lived in the home two of the last five years, up to $250,000 of the gain is excluded (the married-filing-jointly figure is exactly double). On a $600,000 sale against $300,000 of basis and $20,000 of selling costs, the gain is $280,000 and the exclusion removes all but $30,000. That remaining gain is still long term and still stacked on ordinary income - on this filer's $80,000 it lands in the 15 percent band, costing $4,500 instead of a bill on the whole $280,000.

Crypto: the same ladder, and the same 0 percent band

Crypto is not taxed on its own schedule. The IRS treats digital assets as property, so a gain is a capital gain: long-term units ride the same preferential ladder, and short-term units are ordinary income. What makes crypto different is how often the holding period flips - a coin sold after eleven months is ordinary income, and the same coin a month later is long term. The ladder also has a 0 percent band: a single filer with only $30,000 of ordinary taxable income has $19,450 of room in it, up to $49,450 of total taxable income, so long-term gains - crypto or stock - up to that line are tax free. The 3.8 percent net investment income tax then adds on top past an estimated $200,000 of modified gross income for a single filer, which is why a large sale can cost more than the bracket alone suggests.

Where these numbers come from

• Every tax figure follows the same capital-gains rules. Long- and short-term gains are priced the same way here and on the Capital Gains, Home Sale and Crypto tax calculators; the 0 percent band and its top come from the published thresholds, and the net investment income rate and threshold are the published ones. Same inputs, same answer.
• The Section 121 exclusion is applied before any gain is priced. The $250,000 single and $500,000 joint exclusion comes off the gain first, exactly as the Home Sale calculator does, and only the remainder reaches the rate table.
• What this calculation leaves out. No carryover losses, no state income tax, no alternative minimum tax, no wash-sale rules, and no crypto basis-identification choice - each of those moves the answer for a particular return.

What this guide does not cover

It does not file anyone's Schedule D or Form 8949, and it does not model the loss-harvesting, carryover-loss, wash-sale or alternative-minimum-tax rules a real portfolio can hit. For crypto it assumes the sales are already separated into lots and reports the term split; it does not pick a cost-basis method or model wallet-level identification. State income tax is absent throughout. What it shows is the shape the federal rules have: term and stacking set the rate, the home exclusion runs first, and the net investment income tax is a real upper layer on large gains.

Price your own stock sale in the Capital Gains Tax Calculator, work a home sale through its exclusion in the Home Sale Capital Gains Calculator, or split a year of crypto into long and short terms in the Crypto Tax Calculator.

Estimates only - not financial, tax or legal advice, and it does not predict how an agency or a court will rule on a particular return. Read the full disclaimer.