Title

Columnist sees a better way to tax cuts

A columnist for a newspaper in California says he thinks he has a better way to, in effect, cut taxes while stimulating the housing market.
Jonathan Lansner writes a column for the Orange County REGISTER. Here’s what he suggests: Double the mortgage interest payment deduction that you can claim on your income taxes.
Under the current tax law, you can deduct a dollar for every dollar you pay out in mortgage interest. Lansner says doubling that allowance to $2 would pay a number of benefits: It would lower the effective mortgage interest rate; it would lower the cost of borrowing no matter what the interest rate of one’s loan; and it would be a de facto tax cut for the middle class, giving them more spending power.
Lansner says the move might be enough to turn skitterish lookers into actual buyers, since home ownership would be the way to reap the benefits of the plan. Adding another benefit of home ownership over renting also might make more people think about finding ways to stay in their homes, rather than succumb to foreclosure.
According to Lansner, his idea ought to cost around $80 billion — a lot of money, but not so much when you compare it to some of the recent bailout numbers that have been bandied about.
Lansner also says that if you like his idea, you may want to consider re-instituting some of the interest deductions we used to enjoy — deductions for interest paid on auto loans, credit cards, student loans and the like that went away in the mid-1980s.
Want to learn more? Visit his column: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/tax-mortgage-interest-2229103-costs-home
What do you think — are there benefits that would apply here in Pinellas County?

Counters

Tags: real estate, taxes

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 at 1:02 pm and is filed under Market Trends, taxes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Leave a Reply