Impact of mortgage interest deduction on budget getting smaller
By Kenneth R. Harney, Special to the Times Thursday, January 20, 2011
Mortgage interest deduction’s impact on budget shrinks
WASHINGTON — Are you worried about the mortgage interest deduction going away? After all, it’s a high-profile, high-cost target for federal budget-cutters — and was prominently featured in the report of the presidential deficit-reduction commission late last year. Reformers have been trying to kill or at least clamp a ceiling on these write-offs for decades.
But here’s an intriguing twist that has just emerged on Capitol Hill and that might bring some encouragement to homeowners, realty agents and builders who strongly oppose any cutbacks in tax benefits. According to new estimates compiled by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation — Congress’ top technical resource on all tax law matters — the mortgage interest deduction is not quite as big a hole in the federal budget as previously estimated.
In fact, it’s …
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