Poll of the Day > its so deranged how many tax deductions you get for home ownership

(+) Yeah! (+)

i sold my house last year so i was thinking about it a lot this weekend while doing my taxes

• the mortgage interest deductions + property tax deductions always put me significantly over the standard deduction, even before factoring in my other deductions like charitable contributions
• when i rented out a room in my house i got to deduct all sorts of stuff like depreciation, to the point where i paid an effective tax rate of like 5% on my income from renting it out
• if you lived in your house full time for at least two years you get to deduct the first TWO HUNDRED FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS from the profit of the sale, in addition to stuff like depreciation and so on. i got more cash than ive ever had in my life from selling it and paid almost no taxes on the sale, lol (just had to repay parts of some deductions i did for the rental income)

if you want to be a 'welfare queen' in the us, just be born in 1970 so you can own an enormous house. the government will take really good care of you lol

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That's something I will never know or experience.


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SpeedDemon20 posted...

That's something I will never know or experience.

yeah i dont think i would have either if i hadnt gotten really lucky speculating on cryptocurrency.

i hope this topic doesnt come across as too humblebraggy (i mean i know it does a little, but thats not my intent). it really just frustrates me because its so arbitrary and unfair. annoyingly theres no way i can think of to talk about my experiences without it sounding like im rubbing it in peoples faces a little

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I wonder how a small "no-exceptions" tax would do in the US... maybe something like 1%, I mean - who can argue with a only 1% tax, that's tiny!?!

But, there's no way to dodge it... no way to deduct it, no way to avoid it, you file... you pay

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property taxes though

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Mead posted...

property taxes though

property taxes are like rent except its much lower and you get to deduct it from your federal taxes


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Lokarin posted...

I wonder how a small "no-exceptions" tax would do in the US... maybe something like 1%, I mean - who can argue with a only 1% tax, that's tiny!?!

But, there's no way to dodge it... no way to deduct it, no way to avoid it, you file... you pay

People would object to it, of course, but provided there are enough other deductions available that those who can't afford extra taxes will be fine, it's really only going to be the people for whom that's several hundred million dollars that have anything to complain about (and, frankly, they don't actually have anything to complain about).

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Lokarin posted...

I wonder how a small "no-exceptions" tax would do in the US... maybe something like 1%, I mean - who can argue with a only 1% tax, that's tiny!?!

But, there's no way to dodge it... no way to deduct it, no way to avoid it, you file... you pay

i mean there is the alternative minimum tax, which is sort of like that. but its your overall taxes, so it doesnt affect me on my house sale because of the taxes im paying for my job

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I have to say, one of the primary reasons I bought a house after paying off my student loans was so that I could keep paying way less taxes. Well, that and living in an apartment sucks.

Once my house is payed off in a few years I might have to look into other ways of keeping the government out of my money.

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PunishedOni posted...

property taxes are like rent except its much lower and you get to deduct it from your federal taxes

not really like rent at all

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Mead posted...

not really like rent at all

its a bill you pay to keep living somewhere that doesnt build equity. from a financial planning perspective, i put property tax + mortgage interest in the same bucket as i put rent in. that's a different bucket than i put paying down my mortgage in.

so for most of the time i owned my house, i had a ~1000$ 'rent' payment and a ~1000$ 'move my money from my bank account to my mortage' payment

another way to put it is that renters pay property tax as part of their rent; they just do it through the intermediary of their landlord and are therefore unable to deduct it. so you get the double whammy of no deduction + more institutions in the middle extracting your labor

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The property tax deduction seems to have less of an impact on my taxes/return when I file since the trump tax bill went into effect. Most of my deductions I used prior don't really change my return like they used to.

Archgoat posted...

The property tax deduction seems to have less of an impact on my taxes/return when I file since the trump tax bill went into effect. Most of my deductions I used prior don't really change my return like they used to.

yeah bumping the standard deduction and the CTC are the only parts of the trump tax bill i actually like

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