(a) The cost or other basis shall be properly adjusted for any expenditure, receipt, loss, or other item, properly chargeable to capital account, including the cost of improvements and betterments made to the property. No adjustment shall be made in respect of any item which, under any applicable provision of law or regulation, is treated as an item not properly chargeable to capital account but is allowable as a deduction in computing net or taxable income for the taxable year. For example, in the case of oil and gas wells no adjustment may be made in respect of any intangible drilling and development expense allowable as a deduction in computing net or taxable income. See the regulations under section 263(c).
(b) The application of the foregoing provisions may be illustrated by the following example:
A, who makes his returns on the calendar year basis, purchased property in 1941 for $10,000. He subsequently expended $6,000 for improvements. Disregarding, for the purpose of this example, the adjustments required for depreciation, the adjusted basis of the property is $16,000. If A sells the property in 1954 for $20,000, the amount of his gain will be $4,000.
(c) Adjustments to basis shall be made for carrying charges such as taxes and interest, with respect to property (whether real or personal, improved or unimproved, and whether productive or unproductive), which the taxpayer elects to treat as chargeable to capital account under section 266, rather than as an allowable deduction. The term taxes for this purpose includes duties and excise taxes but does not include income taxes.
(d) Expenditures described in section 173 to establish, maintain, or increase the circulation of a newspaper, magazine, or other periodical are chargeable to capital account only in accordance with and in the manner provided in the regulations under section 173.
The preliminary Code is a preliminary release of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (the "Code") by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel and is subject to further revision before it is released again as a final version. The source of the preliminary Code used in TouchTax is available here: https://uscode.house.gov/download/download.shtml. The Code is a consolidation and codification by subject matter of the general and permanent laws of the U.S. prepared by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives. The Treasury Regulations are a codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register by the departments and agencies of the federal government. The version of the Treasury Regulations available within TouchTax is part of the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations which is not an official legal edition of the Code of Federal Regulations but is an editorial compilation of CFR material and Federal Register amendments produced by the National Archives and Records Administration's Office of the Federal Register (OFR) and the Government Publishing Office. The source of the CFR used in TouchTax is available here: https://www.govinfo.gov/bulkdata/ECFR/title-26. Those using TouchTax for legal research should verify their results against the printed versions of the Code and Treasury Regulations. TouchTax is copyright 2024 by Com-Lab (Mobile). Learn more at http://touchtax.edrich.de.