I am trying to educate myself and a friend regarding capital gains taxes or inheritance taxes. Example if a family member dies and leaves a farm to an individual lets say a few years ago and now the individual wants to sell it what kind of capital gains taxes or inheritance taxes are there once sold? Is there a website to read up on this kind of information. If the money is invested not used to purchase another property but long term invested does that affect the taxes?

Inheritance taxes are taxes paid by the person who inherits a property. In the US the federal government has no inheritance tax, so no worries there. There are a few states that impose an inheritance tax, but the rate varies depending on the relationship of the heir to the deceased, and in many cases no tax is imposed at all. Inheritance taxes are paid at the time the property is inherited, so if the property is in a state that has an inheritance tax, and if it applied to you, it would have been paid years ago.

Now when you sell you pay capital gains tax (federal and state/local if applicable where you live) on the difference between the proceeds you realize on the sale (sales price less costs of sales such as commision) and the fair market value of the property as of the date of death of the decedant (or 6 months after death if the executor specifed this when filing estate taxes). So you will need to know the fair market value on that date. You can ask the executor what value he used for estate tax purposes - otherwise you can have an appraisal done. This assumes that the property is not a business and that the property has not been depreciated - it gets more complicated if this has occurred. The capital gains tax is owed regardless of what the proceeds are used for, thoug there are some exceptions for selling and buying business property. Post back if that's an issue here.