California is a community property state. The property title was held by husband and wife as joint tenants since 1975. The property was purchased in 1975 for $20,000 and is worth $1,400,000 today. Is the step up basis the full fair market value on the date of the spouse's death? Or would it be half of the full market value? I've read quite a bit online regarding this and it isn't clear cut from what I've read. Wondering if any CB accountants are familiar with this.
Either way that is a crazy amount of savings on capital gains. If the full step up is used that would be a gain of nearly $1.4 million with zero taxes!