Deductible mortgage interest?

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

What percentage of homeowners actually can deduct their mortgage interest from their federal income taxes?

I don't know where to find the statistics or the raw numbers to work with. Is the info out there? This is just a matter of curiosity.

We have never been able to do so for our household. (House payments, interest, and value are very small compared to income.) How about you?

[Ima saver]

We own our home free and clear, but I just use the standard deduction, so even if I had a mortgage, I am sure my interest would not be more than the standard deduction. (If it was I couldn't afford it)

[asmom]

Originally Posted by Joan.of.the.Arch

What percentage of homeowners actually can deduct their mortgage interest from their federal income taxes?

I don't know where to find the statistics or the raw numbers to work with. Is the info out there? This is just a matter of curiosity.

We have never been able to do so for our household. (House payments, interest, and value are very small compared to income.) How about you?

We deduct ours every year. Once I tote up interest along with property taxes, charitable contributions, etc. it is significantly more than the standard deduction for us.

[jmjj215]

The big selling point for realtors/mortgage brokers, etc. is to tell you that your cost of borrowing is much lower because of the deductibilitly. But will you be able to deduct? That's another important question that should be asked.

In 2002, of the 130 million federal tax returns filed, only 46 million were itemized. Of those, only 37 million taxpayers claimed the mortgage-interest deduction.

http://money.cnn.com/2005/11/03/pf/t...eres/index.htm

So out of the 65% that filed but didn't itemize, what percentage of them own a home (i.e. don't get to deduct)? I couldn't dig up any other stats on that.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Interesting, what you did find, though, Jesse.

[34saving]

There is also the problem of CAN deduct vs. DOES deduct. I bet a lot of people don't deduct mortgage interest because they're scared of the long form or simply don't know any better.

[jmjj215]

Originally Posted by 34saving

There is also the problem of CAN deduct vs. DOES deduct. I bet a lot of people don't deduct mortgage interest because they're scared of the long form or simply don't know any better.

I sure hope that's not too many people. With software nowadays, it's pretty easy to handle the basic tax stuff (Schedule A being one of those).

[Ima saver]

Lots of people, like me, don't know how to handle software, heck i don't even know what it is!! But I have no mortgage interest. Isn't standard deduction around $9000? I would never pay out that much in mortgage interest.

[jmjj215]

I believe it was 10k last year for the standard deduction.

[Ima saver]

I think you are right. I just use the standard deduction.