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Okay, I'm not a single issue voter...but if they take away the mortgage interest deduction I will be
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Anonymous
Sorry, I confused you with another poster. It depends on your income. Higher incomes have higher AMT liability. The mortgage interest deduction has been legislated out of usefulness for anyone with HHI over 250k. Just another way the Republicans will rape the middle class and apparently, they will like it. |
Anonymous
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Classic "not in my back yard" response.
I know I am going to be asked to sacrifice financially = I want to make sure it is a shared sacrifice, not targeted just at the me's of this world. |
Anonymous
| Actually, as one of DCUM's token conservatives, I agree that the mortgage interest deduction is difficult to justify -- it functions basically as a regressive transfer from renters to homeowners, albeit one that mostly just claws back a little bit of the progressivity of the income tax generally since homeowners tend to higher incomes. The only problem is the jostling of currently-settled expectations, so I think it should be gradually phased down through a combination of lowering the amount that can be deducted over time and not indexing that amount for inflation. This is a low-hanging fruit for increased revenue, and the money so raised ought to go to deficit reduction -- ok, that's just a dream, I know. |
Anonymous
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Classic "not in my back yard" response.
"Don't tax you. Don't tax me. Tax that fellow behind the tree." When it comes to mortgage tax deduction all of you will be a single issue voter and continue to rant and rave about the deficit. |
Anonymous
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The jostling of currently settled expectations?
Tax law fluctuates wildly. Have you done any estate planning in the past decade? |
Anonymous
Just because tax law fluctuates wildly doesn't mean that is desireable policy. |
Anonymous
| 17:44 That's obvious. But it's the reality, and I think some phase-in makes sense but I get tired of people who complain about tax changes on these grounds when of course they welcome changes that benefit them. |
Anonymous
I don't think this is correct. I don't see any income requirements with respect to the AMT and mortgage interest deductions. |
Anonymous
| More folks with their hands out at the government teat. Welfare queens. |
Anonymous
The point of AMT is to limit the amount of deductions that you can take. This, in and of itself, would not be income-specific. But in doing the calculation, they give everyone a $70k exemption. So in reality, it kicks in on upper income people with large deductions. Lower income people can have large deductions relative to their income and it won't matter because of the exemption. Also, at certain levels, the exemptions fade out, making it even tougher for higher income people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_Minimum_Tax |
Anonymous
| Is not the mortgage interest allowed on top of the $70K deduction for the AMT? That is my understanding. You get the $70K, but then on top of that you are allowed certain additional adjustments, and the mortgage interest is one of them. |
Anonymous
Exactly. And it's not even the recommendation of the full committee, but rather a preemptive leak of the two chairmen--one which has been roundly dismissed by the remaining members of the commission. Having said that, the composition of this commission has been classic Obama Administration cluster-fuck. As jsteele said, he appointed a hard-right Republican and a center-right Democrat to head this thing, both of whom have an obsession with eliminating Social Security. So anything they come up with is going to be "Obama's Plan". How fucking stupid did they have to be not to see this coming? Obama and his idiotic political advisors should be impeached for political malpractice. They have no idea whatsoever how to play this game. |
Anonymous
Funny how deficits "didn't matter" under Reagan, or under Cheney-Bush. This from the "fiscal conservatives" (a phrase that is essentially meaningless). Personally, I don't give a shit about short-term deficits. We should be running a short term deficit during this recession. The only way to address long-term deficits is to rein in Medicare and health care costs in general. This is one of the things that the ACA (if fully implemented) will do. In contrast, there is *nothing*--literally nothing--that "Conservatives" have proposed that will make a dent in long-term deficits. (Certainly not the privatization of Social Security). It's been grandstanding from start to finish. That's why Obama and the Democrats are the only "fiscal conservatives" in the game right now. |
Anonymous
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Hilarious ... a single mom with $200k in income and a $500k mortgage considers herself middle class. Having special needs kids is no doubt the rationale here. As is typical (so as not to pick on only the OP), EVERYONE thinks they are middle class, and the family down the road that earns $10 more is "rich" ... particularly when deciding how much in taxes one feels one owes.
Tax expenditures such as the mortgage deduction and the charitable donation deduction and others largely benefit the upper class, not the middle and lower classes. So if you are a democrat who would love to see the upper class pay more of their "fair share" ... you should be delighted about caps being placed on these items. Paying $10,000 a year more in taxes when you earn $200,000 doesn't sound so terrible to me, personally! Of course, our household makes $10 less than yours, so we are middle class where as you are obscenely wealthy. |
Anonymous
We have a HHI of about $230, mortgage interest of about $35000, charitable contributions of about $10,000. We have paid the AMT for over 6 years, back when we had an HHI of $190,000. mortgage interest was about $40000 and charitable was about $8000. Why did we pay AMT back then, then? |