Tag Archives: mortgage interest

Six Home Ownership Tax Benefits

If you own or are considering purchasing a home, you can take advantage of many tax benefits. Here are six of the most commonly used homeowner tax breaks:

Mortgage interest deduction. You can deduct the interest you pay in your monthly mortgage bill when you itemize deductions on your tax return. This can be a huge benefit, especially in the early years of a mortgage. That’s because typically about 80 percent of your mortgage bill in your first year of home ownership on a 30-year mortgage goes toward interest. Principal payments typically don’t exceed interest until year 18 of a 30-year mortgage.

Note: This benefit is capped to apply to $750,000 in indebtedness for new loans beginning in 2018 ($1 million for loans taken out in 2017 or earlier).

Property tax deductions. You can deduct up to $10,000 in combined state and local taxes. Called the SALT deduction, this can be used to deduct local property taxes, state income taxes, and state and local sales taxes.

Closing cost deductions. You can deduct some of the closing costs of a home purchase in the year you buy it. This includes things like real estate taxes and mortgage discount points you pay up front to lower your interest rate over the life of your loan. Because each point costs 1 percent of your total mortgage amount, the tax deduction on these costs can be substantial.

Home improvement tax breaks. If you take out a second mortgage or what is commonly called a home equity mortgage and use it to buy, build or substantially improve your home, you can deduct the interest on that loan from your taxes. This feature is now grouped into your total mortgage indebtedness, which is capped at $750,000.

Caution: Interest on home equity loans used for any other means (e.g., to pay down credit card debt or to purchase a car) is no longer deductible.

Energy-efficiency tax breaks. There are special tax breaks available for renewable energy and energy-efficiency upgrades to your house:

  1. The cost to buy and install solar, wind and geothermal equipment to your main residence or a second home can be deducted by 30 percent.
  2. Energy-efficient upgrades can be deducted by 100 percent for items such as central air conditioning, furnaces and water heaters, capped at a total of $500.

Capital gains exclusion. You have the ability to exclude up to $250,000 of profits (or $500,000 if you are married) from the sale of your home, as long as it’s your primary residence and you’ve lived there at least two years.

Remember, if you’re thinking of buying a home, you’ll want to make a tax review part of your preparation. Because the tax deductions on mortgage interest and points can be so substantial in the early years of home ownership, they may factor in to how much home you can afford.

Tax Planning Time

Now is the ideal time to schedule a tax planning session. Your 2017 tax return outcome is still fresh, and it’s early enough in the year to take advantage of the numerous tax law changes taking place in 2018. Here’s a brief overview of some of the new tax issues that you need to plan for now.

Income – Tax rates for both individuals and small businesses have changed substantially. Income tax deductions have also changed drastically, including a nearly doubling of the standard deduction and elimination of personal exemptions and miscellaneous itemized deductions.

It’s important to review your income tax withholding schedule to see where you fall in the new income tax bracket structure. Small adjustments here could save you hundreds.

Bunching – Because of the changes to the deductions structure, using itemized deductions may now require bunching two or even three years of expenses into one tax year. Things like donations to charity and medical expenses that you may have spread across several years are now better bunched into a single year to maximize your tax savings.

If you typically take care of medical expenses or charitable donations at a regular time every year, hold off this year until you have a new tax-efficient plan.

SALT (State and local taxes) – There’s now a $10,000 combined total cap on deductions of state and local income, sales and property taxes, which is going to impact a lot of people, especially in high-tax states. This may be a big factor to account for if you’ve relied on this deduction in the past.

Get an analysis done to see how much larger your tax bill is going to be because of the cap on SALT taxes. There may not be much you can do about it, other than changing where you live and own property, but you’ll need to have a clear picture of how it will impact your tax return in 2018.

Mortgage interest changes – There are several new rules changing how mortgage interest is deducted. You can no longer deduct the interest on mortgage indebtedness greater than $750,000. And you can no longer deduct interest on mortgage indebtedness that wasn’t spent directly on buying, building or substantially improving your home.

If you have previously claimed a home equity loan interest deduction, you’ll need to review how this will affect your itemized deductions.

These are just a few examples of things that you’ll need to review in the wake of the largest tax law change in more than 30 years. Take some time this summer to make sure you have a plan in place.