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Obama Panel Eyes killing Mortgage Tax Breaks

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JohnOfSheffield said:
Traveling is also deductible, but then you can't use housing deductibles for staying near your job...

It's all a big mess created by people who wanted it to be fair, just like you.

Truth is, the only proper way of dealing with it is to remove it all, that way you'll pay the real cost and your employer might want to weigh in on that too when it comes to travel and housing, that is, if you are valuable to your workplace...

That is how capitalism works, isn't it?
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In your country they take a lot more and it isn't enough. When you get that worked out then get back to me about ours
 
ichy said:
Rationally the mortgage interest tax deduction is pretty stupid and should go. Of course, it would be nice if they lowered overall spending and used some of the income from eliminating the deduction to cut overall tax rates but that of course will never happen. Far too much crap like this (some kids in DC are now getting three free meals a day from schools):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/18/AR2010101806070.html
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How about eliminating crap like this?
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2114189
 
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There are huge amounts of crap that should be eliminated, although to really get deficits under control there are going to have to be painful cuts to Medicare and Social Security.
 
ichy said:
There are huge amounts of crap that should be eliminated, although to really get deficits under control there are going to have to be painful cuts to Medicare and Social Security.
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You can't really "cut" social security in a conventional sense. That's money they've already taken out of pay checks, and they're just giving it back to people.

I don't know exact numbers, but some of the more conservative members of this forum estimated the real growth of SS as being somewhere close to 0% (which they argue is bad because investing it yourself in any random bond would pay better). Ideally SS should be a "locked box" that Al Gore talked about and SNL made fun of, but politicians borrow against it when they want to spend money they don't have. The result is that general taxes are then used to pay for social security and people get upset over this.
 
Zebo said:
loliberals Think anyone with a job and mortage as rich...they might be once obama is done, but not yet and mortgage instrest deduction is chump change.. (especially now with only half actually paying, other half saying fuck it)
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95% of the attacks I see here on liberals are wrong or lies, I can't remember the other 5%.
 
Zebo said:
loliberals Think anyone with a job and mortage as rich...they might be once obama is done, but not yet and mortgage instrest deduction is chump change.. (especially now with only half actually paying, other half saying fuck it)
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95% of the comments I see here on liberals are wrong or lies, I can't remember the other 5%.
 
xj0hnx said:
The sick mind of the liberal, you keeping your money "cost" the government money, disgusting.
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Yes, lower taxes don't cost the government budget a cent. It's magic, and why we don't have any more deficit with the Bush tax cuts than without them.
 
ElFenix said:
i dunno about that. maybe if morons didn't treat their houses like an ATM or buy houses they couldn't afford then yeah, houses for everyone. but idiots in california like to cause a housing bubble every 10 or 15 years ...
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Do you have data California is some big leader on this? It is on many issues, but this?

and the way deductions work, as explained above, you can either itemize or take the standard deduction. can't do both. so if you've got a mortgage in the $125,000 range, you can deduct about $6,200 in the first year by itemizing, which is barely more than the standard deduction for singles ($5,700), and well below the married filing jointly deduction of $11,400.
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If that were your only deduction. But things like state income tax are deductible, too.
 
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ShawnD1 said:
You can't really "cut" social security in a conventional sense. That's money they've already taken out of pay checks, and they're just giving it back to people.

I don't know exact numbers, but some of the more conservative members of this forum estimated the real growth of SS as being somewhere close to 0% (which they argue is bad because investing it yourself in any random bond would pay better). Ideally SS should be a "locked box" that Al Gore talked about and SNL made fun of, but politicians borrow against it when they want to spend money they don't have. The result is that general taxes are then used to pay for social security and people get upset over this.
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Two points:
1) Money from non-SS taxes is not being diverted to Social Security.
2) The 'lock box" model would never, ever earn interest. No one pays interest on money under the mattress. If you want to earn interest on SS funds then you have to loan them out to somebody. Congress chose to loan it to the treasury. They could choose to loan it to the private sector instead. There are arguments for/against doing this. The funds might earn better returns but at higher risks. The potential for public/private corruption would dwarf what we see now.
 
ShawnD1 said:
There's a difference between a tax deduction and a handout. Tax deduction means you keep your own money - free market.

In general, tax deductions are put on things that are deemed good for society. Education is good, so education is tax free. Medical and dental procedures are sometimes tax free as well. Home ownership a good thing, so that's tax free. Saving for retirement is a good thing, so RRSPs and 401ks are tax free.
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Except for this one little problem, renting doesn't generate any tax breaks, which makes it a subsidy for people with more money.

Now if everyone got to deduct a portion of their housing expenses, that would be different.


Renters subsidize house buyers here, plain and simple.
 
As much as the tax and spend liberals would love to kill the interest deduction, even they are aware of the fact that it would be political suicide. The more fanatic fringe elements propose it from time to time, but it can't happen because some politicians want to keep their jobs and the president wants to get re-elected.
 
You guys weren't paying attention to him during his first year. Part of his tax policy all along was to eliminate the mortgage deduction for folks making more than 250k. He's said as much many times.
 
IronWing said:
I bought a house that was reasonably priced for my income. The mortgage interest tax deduction benefited me for exactly one year. After that, the standard deduction was a better deal. I say let it crash. Of course it is still political suicide to kill it.

For a married couple to benefit from the mortgage interest tax deduction (reach the point where it is a better deal than the standard deduction) for even the first year of the mortgage given current interest rates they would have to have a mortgage of at least $230,000 (5%, 30 fixed rate). The median house price is currently at $178k, so one would have to be well into the upper half of house buyers to benefit from this deduction.
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Did you keep all the receipts from stuff you bought? Sales tax paid can be itemized too.

My parents have a 30 year mortgage. They were able to itemize from mortgage interest deduction and it saved them a little bit of money for 3-4 years. After that standard deduction became a better deal.

I guess if you put less than 20% down and has a huge balance, it could reduce your federal tax liability a lot, but that usually isn't the case.
 
I think we have to considerably reevaluate the pedestal upon which we place home ownership, quite frankly. The massively influential concepts of free trade and the global economy are making fewer the days where people have only one or two jobs their entire life; being more mobile and not tied down to a house in one city/county/township is going to become more and more advantageous from a financial and career perspective.
 
alphatarget1 said:
Did you keep all the receipts from stuff you bought? Sales tax paid can be itemized too.

My parents have a 30 year mortgage. They were able to itemize from mortgage interest deduction and it saved them a little bit of money for 3-4 years. After that standard deduction became a better deal.

I guess if you put less than 20% down and has a huge balance, it could reduce your federal tax liability a lot, but that usually isn't the case.
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  • Sales tax itemization or based on income table for your area.
  • Or state/local income tax.

Can not have both as a writeoff
 
Craig234 said:
Yes, lower taxes don't cost the government budget a cent. It's magic, and why we don't have any more deficit with the Bush tax cuts than without them.
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Here's a little hint for your sick and twisted liberal mind ...the money I work for, is mine, not the governments. I know you loony leftist obey your big government masters, and feel beholden to them, but it really is our money.
 
MooseNSquirrel said:
Except for this one little problem, renting doesn't generate any tax breaks, which makes it a subsidy for people with more money.
.....

Renters subsidize house buyers here, plain and simple.
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?????
RENTING IS MORE EXPENSIVE THAN BUYING.

That's the whole point of being a land lord. They don't buy a house then rent it out for less than the cost of the mortage. Land lords might be scum bags, but they're not retarded.
 
CrackRabbit said:
Alright Brainy Smurf, what exactly do they do then.
You can't cut enough to balance the budget, and you can't "raise" taxes enough to cover it.
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how about bring all of our troops from the ME. that would cut a lot of spending. in my opinion our mission over is done. time to pull out and move on.
 
JohnOfSheffield said:
Traveling is also deductible, but then you can't use housing deductibles for staying near your job...

It's all a big mess created by people who wanted it to be fair, just like you.

Truth is, the only proper way of dealing with it is to remove it all, that way you'll pay the real cost and your employer might want to weigh in on that too when it comes to travel and housing, that is, if you are valuable to your workplace...

That is how capitalism works, isn't it?
Click to expand...

What they hell are you talking about?
 
IronWing said:
2) The 'lock box" model would never, ever earn interest. No one pays interest on money under the mattress. If you want to earn interest on SS funds then you have to loan them out to somebody. Congress chose to loan it to the treasury. They could choose to loan it to the private sector instead. There are arguments for/against doing this. The funds might earn better returns but at higher risks. The potential for public/private corruption would dwarf what we see now.
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Actually the lock box model is exactly how regular bonds work. If I buy a 10 year bond, my money is locked unless I take it out prematurely and get raped on fees. GICs work the same way. You put money in a box with a written guarantee saying it stays in there for maybe 5 years, and you get a return on that money.
The government's approach to SS is totally different. It's not locked at all. If you, as a politician, feel like using that money to pay for random bullshit projects, you're allowed to. I think that's fundamentally dangerous. Would you dip into your own retirement fund to buy a car then promise yourself to pay that money back at a later time? That's what the gubment does.
 
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