IR833 Exclusions

For individuals and trusts (in limited circumstances), there are specific exclusions to the bright-line test. These are:

• a sale/disposal of property that is the seller’s main home

• a sale/disposal by a trustee where the property was the beneficiary’s main home and the principal settlor doesn’t have a main home, or the principal settlor has a main home and it’s that main home the person is disposing of

• a transfer of property to an executor or administrator, followed by

• the transfer to an individual beneficiary, and

• the sale of the property by the beneficiary.

A main home is the dwelling the seller (or the beneficiary of the trust) used predominately as a residence, for most of the time they owned it. If they had two or more homes, the main home was the property they had the greatest connection with.

Note: A person can’t use the main home exclusion if they’ve used the exclusion two or more times in the previous two years.

For more details on the property sales tax rules, go to www.ird.govt.nz/property/property-selling/ 

or read Inland Revenue’s guides Buying and selling residential property (IR313) and Tax and your property transactions (IR361).