3 ms·
> I've never understood why people make such a big deal out of that deduction. It contributes to economic unfairness. Paying less taxes just because one owns a
by mevile 10y ago
> I've never understood why people make such a big deal out of that deduction.
It contributes to economic unfairness. Paying less taxes just because one owns a house is not optimal use of tax dollars when people who can't afford a house are doing pretty badly.
A homeowner pays less in housing costs (mortgages aren't subject to rent increases by a landlord) and pay less taxes than someone who rents who makes the same and they get to keep all the equity. It's incredibly unfair.
The historical reason for the subsidy is to increase home ownership. It's not really helping anymore.
- marssaxman 10y agoThat's the part I understand. What surprised me, when I bought a house, was that for all the talk about what a big deal this deduction was supposed to be, and how difficult it would supposedly be to eliminate it, the actual effect on my total housing cost was effectively negligible. They could roll it back tomorrow and I'd never notice.
- mevile 10y agoYou must not pay a lot of interest. I deduct this and my property taxes and it's thousands of dollars less that I pay each year. It's significant.
- gozur88 10y agoThat's because this is a time of historically low interest rates. If rates were 12%, like they were when I got out of school, you'd definitely notice.
- ArkyBeagle 10y agoI've owned three homes and never taken the mortgage interest deduction. The historical reason is based on 20% down mortgages for less-than-2x-annual-income housing. That's clearly not much the case any longer. Now it's expected by the NAR and the general real estate industrial complex.