I inherited a small piece of land and sold it, do I pay tax on the proceeds if so can I deduct sale expences.?

You'd owe tax on your gain from the time the person died, and yes you can deduct sales expenses from that before you figure your tax.

Unless the owner died in 2010, the value of the land was bumped to the fair market value on the date of death and should have very little in the way of gain or loss.

Edit, to claim a loss in excess of the selling expenses, you would have to have a professional appraisal that was done at the time of death. (Tax assessments do not cut it.)

Yes you can add sales expenses to the death value to compute your total cost basis. The resulting loss can be claimed on Schedule D - loss is limited to 3,000 but balance can be carried over to future years.

if you sold at a loss there would be nothing to tax

That depends which country you live in. Yahoo is seen worldwide.