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Hmmm. You have claimed to live in zip code 27616 which is Raleigh, NC. Mortgage interest is in fact deductible under North Carolina tax law. There is however a cap of $20,000 on the sum of mortgage interest and property taxes that can be deducted.
Nobody actually does state returns anymore. We just let TurboTax figure it out.
And like me, TurboTax knows full well that a mortgage interest deduction is available to filers of North Carolina state income taxes.
It's available to everyone that qualifies. Btw looks like the Feds are gonna raise rates. Probably 25 percentage points. Which may cause another rush of re-fi's or purchases
the feds short term action has nothing to do with fixed mortgages . fixed mortgages tend to follow the 10 year bond . they move based on fear ,greed and perception of inflation.
the last 40 years every time the fed raised the short term rates more than 1% in a year bonds did very will that year as longer term rates fell while short term went up . .
only one exception 1994 .
increasing short term rates squashes the fear of inflation ,bonds enemy .
Last edited by mathjak107; 06-12-2017 at 11:30 AM..
It's available to everyone that qualifies. Btw looks like the Feds are gonna raise rates. Probably 25 percentage points. Which may cause another rush of re-fi's or purchases
I hope you meant 25 BASIS points, but refi's become more attractive as interest rates decline.
And "the feds" would typically refer to any group of federal employees. The nation's monetary policy is guided by "the Fed", an agency of the US government that is not owned by member banks.
You are missing something very important in the conservative mindset and that is that there is absolutely nothing fair about the income tax system. Fair, would be that everybody pays the exact same nominal amount. An ice cream cone costs $3.50. The owner of the ice cream store doesn't care whether you make $50K or $500K, the ice cream cone is still $3.50. If person "A" pays "X" income tax, then person "B" should pay "X", and family of 5 should pay 5X.
That would be complete fairness, but I think most conservatives understand you cannot run the government that way. Revenue would be too low to do just about anything, and you can't get blood from a stone.
The next level of fairness would be to charge everyone the same percentage of their income. Everybody pays 18%. No deductions or loopholes. That is feasible, and I think it is supported by most conservatives. They think that this, while not perfect, is fair enough. Many also think that usage taxes are the fairest form of taxation, while many liberals consider that to be regressive.
So with that said, let's go back to our current system. If person "A" is paying $200k in income tax, but he gets $15k back from his mortgage deduction, more power to him, because he is still paying $185K, which is a lot more than person "B" who is only paying $5K. Or even worse, person "C" who pays nothing, and even gets some of the money that person "A" and person "B" put in.
So yes, the word "fairness" is not something most conservatives apply to the tax code, so when someone takes advantage of a deduction or a loophole, most conservatives do not get upset about it. After all, they are just making a system of extreme imbalance, just a little bit more balanced.
And yet the conservatives are dead set against the Value Added Tax (VAT) which is probably the fairest tax there is. Everybody pays the same percentage. If company A mines iron ore and sells it for $1 they pay 10 cents tax, no deductions. If company B buys the or for $1.10 and smelts it into steel, then sells it for $6.10 they pay 50 cents tax. If a tool manufacturer buys the steel and sells drill bits for $16.60 they pay $1 in tax.
(stuff you sell) - (stuff you buy) = (value added). (value added) x 10% = your VAT.
Retailers only pay VAT on their markup, not on the whole price of the goods they sell. Everybody pays taxes, with the rich getting stroked harder. If you buy a $50,000 pickup, you pay $5k in VAT, which mostly shows up as a $54,000 sticker price. There are no deductions and no loopholes.
If you buy a used car, you don't pay any tax at all because there is no value added. If your mechanic fixes the car, you pay VAT on the parts, but nothing on labor.
You are just saying nonsensical words to me. You are combatting what you perceive to be right wing cliches with left wing cliches. You know that liberals do a great job of bamboozling their own when they are able to convince them that their money is not "hard earned". Personally, I work anywhere between 80 and 100 hours a week in some of the most stressful situations you could imagine. There is nothing you could possibly say that would convince me that my money is NOT hard earned. Maybe you live on passive income. Maybe you work some 40 hour a week, mundane job. I don't know what it is that you do that makes it so easy to fool you into believing people's money is not hard earned, but if you think others are not entitled to that view, you are sorely mistaken.
That would be fairly easy to take care of. Most specialists I know bill out over a million bucks a year. A 90% marginal tax rate on everything earned in less than 48 hours a week, and dropping back to 35% on the rest would be fair. The definition of "hard earned" could be anything over 48 hours a week. Easy peasy.
And yet the conservatives are dead set against the Value Added Tax (VAT) which is probably the fairest tax there is. Everybody pays the same percentage. If company A mines iron ore and sells it for $1 they pay 10 cents tax, no deductions. If company B buys the or for $1.10 and smelts it into steel, then sells it for $6.10 they pay 50 cents tax. If a tool manufacturer buys the steel and sells drill bits for $16.60 they pay $1 in tax.
(stuff you sell) - (stuff you buy) = (value added). (value added) x 10% = your VAT.
Retailers only pay VAT on their markup, not on the whole price of the goods they sell. Everybody pays taxes, with the rich getting stroked harder. If you buy a $50,000 pickup, you pay $5k in VAT, which mostly shows up as a $54,000 sticker price. There are no deductions and no loopholes.
If you buy a used car, you don't pay any tax at all because there is no value added. If your mechanic fixes the car, you pay VAT on the parts, but nothing on labor.
I know what a VAT is, and I don't disagree with you. It is a fair and reasonable tax. I would get behind that if it offset the income tax. Why do you say that most conservatives are dead set against it? Are they dead set against it as an additional tax? If that is the case, I would be dead set against it too. We don't need an additional tax. But to replace the income tax, or at least an equal portion, would be something I would think most conservatives would back.
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