“But, if you don’t have enough deductions overall you can’t take the deduction anyway. I found that out after I bought my first home.”
I think a lot of people will be discovering the same, should the Senate bill become law. They’ll get angry because they lose their chance to ‘screw the government’ by taking the mortgage deduction, since the standard deduction works better for them.
And I wonder how many of these anti-Republican tax plan types even UNDERSTAND that, even today, you don’t really get to deduct your whole mortgage (in many cases) but, in effect, only the part of the mortgage (plus other deductions) that exceed the Standard Deduction. I think a lot of people think: “I itemize now and can write off $15,000 - if you make me take the Standard Deduction (whatever it is), I lose that $15,000 write-off and thus pay almost $4,000 more in taxes (if in 25% bracket).”
I was always up front and explained they’d have to have a lot of deductions to actually save money. The “trainers” were always pushing that crap of “What if I showed you how to get the government to pay part of your payment?” I’d explain it but I’d also explain the standard deduction. I’m sure the big builders didn’t understand it because accountants did their taxes.