Potential federal tax change.

[ERD50]

The only people I know who aren’t taking the standard deduction fall into two catagories:

1. They are extremely wealthy.

2. They bought their first house in my very housing cost area and thus are are paying outrageous amounts of interest on an outrageously large mortgage.

You might be surprised. It doesn’t take much when you add some mortgage interest, property tax, state taxes paid, some donations, maybe some medical. I’ve itemized for several years now and I don’t think I fall into 1 or 2.

Around here most single people with a mortgage can itemize. SALT is capped at $10K no matter your filing status, ....

So it seems the big disconnect is MFJ vs single. I've only filed MFJ for decades, so it never occurred to me that SALT isn't adjusted for MFJ vs Single. Very weird, if you ask me.

With SALT, exceeding the standard for MFJ would take a somewhat rare combo of charity/medical.

-ERD50

 

[Car-Guy]

Math is hard!

Is impossibly difficult.

Especially when "someone" keeps changing the numbers in formulas.

 

[TheWizard]

So it seems the big disconnect is MFJ vs single. I've only filed MFJ for decades, so it never occurred to me that SALT isn't adjusted for MFJ vs Single. Very weird, if you ask me.

With SALT, exceeding the standard for MFJ would take a somewhat rare combo of charity/medical.

-ERD50

You mean the deductible LIMIT on State And Local Taxes.
My SALT are approximately double the $10k limit...

 

[Cayman]

Great. More Debt for the good ol' USA.

 

[athena53]

Around here most single people with a mortgage can itemize. SALT is capped at $10K no matter your filing status, so a single person with a good job only needs another $3850 in mortgage interest and charitable contributions to get over the bar.

I agree. I'm single and hit the SALT cap easily. Small amount of mortgage interest, very high charitable, over $700/month in Medicare premiums so I usually have enough Medical over the 7.5% (10%?) of AGI floor to generate a deduction... it adds up.

This may actually increase my taxes since my additional deductions over and above the standard deduction will decrease as the standard deduciton increases.

 

[HawkeyeNFO]

The only people I know who aren’t taking the standard deduction fall into two catagories:

1. They are extremely wealthy.

2. They bought their first house in my very housing cost area and thus are are paying outrageous amounts of interest on an outrageously large mortgage.

That's a myopic statement. Several reasons people itemize, as already pointed out by several others. I don't fit into either of your categories, and I itemize.

 

[tulak]

I’m single and itemize. I have a big mortgage, which gives me lots of mortgage interest to deduct. Add in property taxes and it’s not hard to get over 12k.

 

[ERD50]

You mean the deductible LIMIT on State And Local Taxes.
My SALT are approximately double the $10k limit...

Right, referring to the SALT LIMIT. - ERD50

 

[Dash man]

We itemize each year, so a change in standard deductions won’t help us. We easily max out the SALT deduction each year, and charitable deductions make up the rest. We may have been able to deduct medical expenses once or twice in the last ten years. Haven’t had a mortgage deduction since 2010.

 

[Murph]

What services do you think they want to cut to pay for it? Hopefully we do not need whatever they are.

None. Just more deficit spending.