Each year, taxpayers subsidize America’s homeowners by roughly $70 billion, with the benefits flowing disproportionately to coastal areas with high incomes and pricey homes, from New York and Washington to Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The subsidy for homeowners comes in the form of a deduction from their taxes for the interest they pay on their mortgages. An affluent New Yorker, for example, would have saved an average of $3,694 in 2015, according to an analysis of IRS data released Wednesday by the real estate company Apartment List. In metro Los Angeles, the deduction was worth an average of $4,568, in San Francisco still more: $5,500.
But under President Donald Trump’s tax proposal, some Americans would likely be steered away from this tax break. Here’s why: Trump’s plan would double the standard deduction, which taxpayers can take if they don’t itemize deductions. The doubled standard deduction could exceed the savings many receive now from itemizing their expenses for housing, state and local taxes and related costs.
But the Trump plan also would eliminate many existing itemized deductions, including those for state and local taxes, so that some people who now itemize might end up paying more.
The president’s proposal would essentially marginalize the use of the mortgage interest deduction, which is the government’s primary form of direct housing assistance: It distributes three times more money this way than it does in the form of vouchers for impoverished renters.