I'm of the mind that the tax system should be progressive, but that the marginal rates shouldn't be so easy to manipulate. That is, income is income and the tax rate is the tax rate. Tax breaks give specific industries huge gifts that I see as unfair to everyone else. For example, the mortgage interest deduction encourages borrowing of sums that otherwise would be untenable, which is a monster gift to the finance industry. And given that every tax deduction is a subsidy that every other tax payer has to make up for, why the hell should a renter have to support my lifestyle? It's ridiculous. That said, I'm certainly going to pay the least tax that I can within the law, so I can't blame anyone else for doing the same. Don't hate the player; hate the game. The players you can hate are the ones who make up the game, the politicians, lobbyists and big donors.
Well said. I would add that that particular deduction is destructive because it 1) disincentivizes prepayment and 2) it artificially inflates the cost of housing, which makes home ownership less accessible to people with low (or no) credit.For example, the mortgage interest deduction encourages borrowing of sums that otherwise would be untenable, which is a monster gift to the finance industry.
Yes and those people, in turn, are the people who are going to make up for the crazy amount of money not going to federal government due to people like me. There's almost no justification for it other than we can't get rid of it, because people's current spending is based on the projection that they'll continue to have this deduction. The behavior is entrenched in the system, and probably can't be removed now. Certainly there are many other evil deductions and credits besides the mortgage deduction, but I chose that one to pick on in particular, because 1) it's taken by lots of people, and 2) I'm included in that lot, and it's easy to pick on oneself.2) it artificially inflates the cost of housing, which makes home ownership less accessible to people with low (or no) credit.