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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (622703)	8/3/2011 6:27:29 PM
From: Jim McMannis	Respond to of 1584531

That too. So much for economic engineering by the tax code, 101.

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (622703)	8/3/2011 6:33:36 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1584531

renters don't get any... Their landlords do, which tends to push rents down. Not that I'm a fan of the home mortgage interest deduction (despite the fact that I do use it to reduce my tax liability), but the issue is a bit more complex then "homeowners get a big benefit that no one else gets". If you eliminate it for homeowners and only for homeowners, then you incentive renting over ownership, since interest payments are a business expense that companies renting units can deduct. If you eliminate the deduction for interest on money used to buy rental units as well as mortgages then you tilt the playing field away from housing. (I know in other ways its tilted toward housing, but I'm tying to consider the changes in isolation, since that's complex enough by itself.) If you eliminate all interest deductions for businesses and individuals then you move to taxing revenue rather than profit, which can be rather problematic for start ups or for cyclical businesses who would have potentially large tax bills even when they are losing money, which might knock them out once a recession comes around. If you eliminate all corporate income taxes then you side step that problem, and can eliminate interest deductions (no corporate deduction needed since your not taxing corporations, and eliminating the personal mortgage deduction doesn't provide a relative disadvantage to owned housing), but I doubt you would support that action, and its hard to do when deficits are so high.