For the encouragement of others
Republicans remove preserving mortgage interest deduction from their platform. If you can get past the reporter’s knee-jerk idiocy (“giving Mitt Romney more flexibility to promote his plan to lower tax rates paid by corporations and the wealthiest Americans without increasing the federal debt”), this is an excellent idea, long overdue. Why should renters pay for their housing with pre- after - tax earnings while homeowners get a deduction? That’s as ridiculous as forcing the self-employed buy medical insurance with those same after-tax earnings, of pay 15% of their income to Social Security or .. wait a minute ….
In any event, we’ll not hear of this again, except from the Democrats. The mortgage interest deduction may distort demand and disadvantage those who can’t buy a home but it’s beloved by builders and Realtors and that’s that.
“The mortgage-interest deduction is high on the list for all Realtors,” said April Newland, a convention delegate from the Virgin Islands. She termed it “the last vestige of why people would be interested in buying a home.”
If the deduction is now the only reason why people would want to buy a home then we’re in far, far more trouble than anyone has so far let on.
So you’re in favor of raising taxes on people who have houses under $1.1 million. So you hate the middle-class and think them to be moochers, so you’re making them pay. Btw – that’s Grover Norquist talking on the first part, Ayn rand on the second part. Don’t blame me, I’m just channeling
I’m in favor of a tax system designed to raise revenue, not take from one group and hand it over to politicians’ friends and campaign contributors.
Chris- Last I knew owners of rental buildings get to deduct interest, so in effect that should be built into the rental lease price. If it isn’t the owner likely won’t be competitive in his/her rental rates.
I believe you meant renters pay with after tax earnings. I’m not sure what you the current deal is with self employed and health insurance, but since it isn’t a business expense as it would be for an employer, I believe that would be after tax also.
I do mean after-tax, AJ and I’ll correct that. My point on health insurance is that if it’s provided by an employer it is treated as tax-free income (in fact, it’s not counted as income at all) whereas those who pay for it themselves have to do so (ignoring the “cafeteria” plans that have been introduced as a way to provide some modest relief) with money left over after paying their taxes.
You need to incorporate, then pay yourself to the extent possible in dividends not income, then stick your corporate name on all your cars and boats besides trying to make your entire life deductible. But then you’re still stuck with that 35% plus personal income tax. Ain’t life grand? Unfortunately corporate tax is rather high in the US, I think 35%. I think it was 16% in Canada, and got lowered to 8%. I think many of the bigger companies locate themselves offshore, and are currently working on how to get the money back into the US without paying taxes.
At 35%, I would think many businesses are running as sole proprietorships, or self-employed, and per usual the big guys get a free ride while the small businessman gets screwed. But since nobody built their business anyway, we can all just go f-off because we all got to hand our money over so it can be dished out to our competitors in the form of corporate welfare to drive the rest of us out of business — my favorite case being $11 million handed over to the Pilsbury Dough Boy to promote himself overseas. Now there’s a case of a company that didn’t do it by itself.
Tax Reform.
One flat rate on *everything*, no deductions.
Also a large pack of highly trained dogs roaming the congress to bite and maul any congress critter who even thinks “exception\ tax rebate \etc…” if they want to give an overt subsidy, I can live with that, but not through messing with the tax code.
Once we’re done here, I think we can move on to the rest of the federal code. I plan to be as draconian on that as the IRS.
I’m pretty sure the FedGov will be running a surplus by the end of my tenure.