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I have a strong suspicion the student loan interest is going to be killed in this plan. And, as discussed elsewhere, the mortgage interest deduction is being limited to mortgages on homes in the $750k to $1M range.
I think there is a gamble on generational warfare here, too. Boomers (especially white boomers) who paid off their houses (or at least are near the end of a mortgage) no longer benefit from the mortgage interest deduction. So they won't miss it. They are also at a stage of life where they no longer have children for whom they can use the personal exemption. As younger generations come of age and reach a stage in life where they, too, can take advantage of these deductions--the ladder is kicked down by the Republican establishment.
We are the youngest Boomers and want to buy a home but are holding off until this mess is figured out. This would be our forever retirement home. True, out kids are all grown and independent now, but you have to realize many of us had to support and help the millennials a decade longer than we planned. Many still ARE helping kids and grandkids. My husband is the youngest in his section, at 54. He asks the older guys in their 70's why they don't retire. The answer is always that they are helping kids and grands.
I have to ask why you singled out "white Boomers"?
I do wish, as I have noted before, that the Congress would act reasonably concerning the 'estate tax', or 'death tax', if you will.
Mind, I am all for 'family farms' being exempt from such death taxes.
However, I see no need to eliminate the estate tax completely, which (besides the farms), only affects a very small minority of people.
As my Estate Law professor explained many, many years ago: We have Puritan roots, in which every man is expected to stand on his own two feet. The Founders were also very suspicious of the English system, as it existed until the 20th Century, that allowed 'entailment' to safeguard huge estates passing from generation to generation, often 'awarding' the idle and slothful with huge sums of money.
If I were worth 100 million, my wife would, upon my death, inherit the money. When she dies, our children would inherit a great sum of money, although not 100 million, due to the death tax. Yet, even after such payment, they would not suffer from want.
Trump is stepping on the "forgotten man" with his "Tax" reform!
I dislike even having to call the Trump Plan a "plan" or "reform". It is neither.
It is old hashed over, Grover Norquist approved, tax BREAKS for those with vast fortunes.
I don't have a vast fortune, so it won't hurt or help me (I'm not the forgotten man).
But just the nerve of this guy....to tell the "forgotten masses" that doing away with the Estate Tax (only paid by people with tens of millions...and even then, they have "trusts, etc.)...and lowering Corporate taxes and the top bracket.
There have been bipartisan attempts at tax reform - REAL tax reform. Simpson-Bowles, etc.
The problem that anyone with 1/2 a brain notices is that taxes have to be INCREASED, not decreased. After all, that is what debt and deficit are - we are not currently paying the bills!
And so, instead of talking about paying the bills and cutting expenses.....this "plan" is just to do away with the debt ceiling, borrow more money and GIVE IT ALL to the very wealthy.
Sometimes - no, all the time, I think we are living in backwards/bizarro word. Good is bad, bad is good, debt is good, balanced budgets are bad, etc.
And NONE of this will help the forgotten man/woman or help those that are working 2 or 3 jobs.
Truly sad. The only redeeming factor here is that nothing will pass Congress.
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