Word: taxed
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...contributed to a run-up in the homeownership rate to 69% from 44% during World War II. In recent years, the mortgage deduction hasn't just helped folks get into a house, it has given them the most valuable tool for managing their finances since the piggy bank: tax-deductible home-equity loans and lines of credit. Just try to find a rate on a credit card or construction loan that, after adjusting for taxes, comes to around 4%, as it does with home-equity borrowing. People have been tapping into this low-cost source of funds for college tuition...
...they want to take it away. A presidential panel last week suggested eliminating the interest deduction on all types of home-equity borrowing and replacing it with a 15% tax credit for a principal residence. Is this lunacy? From the homeowner's perspective, it sure seems like...
Lawmakers have toyed with curbing the mortgage deduction for 30 years, both for utilitarian reasons (to boost tax revenue) and philosophical ones (to make the tax code less favorable to the wealthy). Yet each time the idea has surfaced it has been swatted away amid public outrage and the battle cries of every real estate lobbyist not sunning at his second home on Fiji. This time the outrage may be even more shrill, given the fears of a real estate bubble about to burst. "We are raising the loudest possible alarms," said Tom Stevens, president of the National Association...
...from a broader economic perspective, dropping mortgage-interest deductions has a certain appeal. For starters, it's only one part of a program that would reform the tax code without changing the burden on the average American. It would raise some taxes only as much as it cuts others. The real target is the alternative minimum tax (AMT), designed years ago to prevent millionaires from avoiding tax, but now increasingly encroaching upon the middle class. Next year the AMT will raise the burden of 21 million taxpayers earning as little as $75,000. But to replace the $1.2 trillion that...
...sewer drains and kill marine life, city officials last week struck a deal with grocery chains to give shoppers 10 million fewer bags by the end of 2006. And how did the city get grocers to agree to kick in $100,000 for the program? By first proposing a tax of 17?...