Losses (homes, stocks, other property)

Maybe. A loss on the sale or exchange of personal use property, including a capital loss on the sale of your home used by you as your personal residence at the time of sale, or loss attributable to the sale of part of your home that is used for personal purposes, isn't deductible. The only deductible losses associated with property (or a portion of property) are losses on property used in a trade or business, losses resulting from a transaction entered into for profit (for example, a loss on the sale of stock), and certain casualty losses. Until 2025, the only deductible casualty losses are those resulting from federally declared disasters.

• Tax Topic 409 - Capital gains and losses
• Publication 523, Selling Your Home
• Publication 544, Sales and Other Dispositions of Assets
• Publication 587, Business Use of Your Home
• Form 4797, Sales of Business Property
• Form 8949, Sales and Other Dispositions of Capital Assets
• Schedule D (Form 1040), Capital Gains and Losses
• Form 4684, Casualties and Thefts
• Publication 547, Casualties, Disasters, and Thefts

If you own securities, including stocks, and they become totally worthless, you have a capital loss but not a deduction for bad debt. Worthless securities also include securities that you abandon. To abandon a security, you must permanently surrender and relinquish all rights in the security and receive no consideration in exchange for it.

• Treat worthless securities as though they were capital assets sold or exchanged on the last day of the tax year.
• You must determine the holding period to determine if the capital loss is short term (one year or less) or long term (more than one year). 
• Report losses due to worthless securities on Schedule D of Form 1040 and fill out Part I or Part II of Form 8949.

• Tax Topic 453 - Bad debt deduction
• Publication 550, Investment Income and Expenses (Including Capital Gains and Losses)