How does TurboTax calculate the years a house was principal residence?

[sha2]

Bought the house in 2012 and sold in 2017 and it was principal residence for all of the years owned.I provided those information on 'Sale of Principal Residence' Steps of EasySteps. Turbotax automatically populated the next step field "How many years was it your principal residence?" as 5 years. I am confused how did it calculate and got this number i.e. 5 years. Can anyone please explain the calculation?

Please note: I have bought another house right after selling the above one in the same year.

[TurboTaxJennifer · Accepted solution]

2017-2012=5 years

Don't worry about the principal residence designation for the new home. It is normal to have overlapping principal residences in the year of sale and CRA accounts for this.

[rosaliescarlett]

CRA talks about tax years. Doesn't this mean it was owned for 6 tax years (2012-3-4-5-6-7)?

[TurboTaxJennifer]

Because of the "plus one" rule, it's actually 5. The example listed here from CRA's site has a detailed explanation: https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/individuals/topics/about-your-tax-return/tax-re...