Originally Posted by
lopena
Ray:
There’s no easy way to avoid capital gains on the sale of an asset worth a couple of hundred thousand dollars. There are always schemes to avoid paying taxes, of course (getting paid in gold coins?) but I would recommend that you just suck it up and pay the capital gains tax.
However, you can minimize the tax bite by collecting all of your restoration invoices and tallying them up. From the looks of your car you must have spent a small fortune getting it into such good shape (don’t include routine maintenance expenses such as oil, filters, plugs, etc.).
Add the “restoration” costs to your initial purchase cost and you’ll have your tax basis.
Disclaimer: I’m not a tax attorney or accountant, so some of the experts out there may take exception to the above, but this is the approach I’ve always used and it’s rational and reasonable.
Good luck!
Alan
N.J.