Posted on 12/21/2017 10:53:13 AM PST by C19fan
Personal Exemption
A personal exemption is the amount that you can deduct from your income for every taxpayer and most dependents claimed on your return. Current law: $4,050 per person, which means a married couple with two dependents would receive a personal exemption of $16,200. New law: The personal exemption is eliminated. The exemption returns after 2025.
(Excerpt) Read more at factcheck.org ...
Look, you financially plan your entire working life under a stable set of rules then those are jerked out from you the day you retire. That is a royal screw job.
I agree that states shouldn’t be subsidizing each other, but that’s just the way it’s been. If you make such gigantic changes, phase them in so you don’t punish those that have been careful and frugal. Maybe a set of rules for those over 65; another set for 50-65; a third set 35-50; and a set for those under 35.
With this drastic change, we are royally f’cked for planning under the rules that existed for decades.
If you want to use your discretionary income giving money to organizations you support, you should just do it without having the government reimburse you for part of your donation in the form of a tax reduction.
If somebody wants to send money to the Clinton Foundation or CAIR, I think they ought to be able to do what they want with their own money. Once the government is reimbursing them for part of their donation, it is the taxpayer's money going to support those organizations.
Move to Texas. Cheaper and better housing, no state income tax, and only a few enclaves of loons instead of a state full of them. Your SALT problems will disappear.
“Everyone will do their own calculations—there will be some losers but many many many more winners.”
With our only child having moved there last year, it is a consideration. But in our case, it won't make much of a difference in our federal tax bill because property taxes in Texas are still pretty high.
And from what I have been reading, some Texans are getting fed up with the annual spikes in their property tax bills. I guess as retirees (one of us is 65+), we would lock in a portion of that bill. Despite that, I figure they would rise more than the 2% limit imposed by Prop 13 in CA (until the super majority there gets it overturned).
You realize a great many people do not have minor children?
We raised ours without all the wonderful new tax reforms
Now we get to subsidize other peoples kids
For tax-paying Americans, I don't have any issue with that, despite the fact we'll owe more in retirement in 2018.
For people who don't pay one dime of federal taxes and get money from the federal government for having kids, yeah, I have a problem with that. Especially with the illegals.
Property taxes may be high, but the cost of real estate is much lower.
And if the financial assets (IRAs, 401ks, ETFs, etc) of those people go up an additional 20% as a result of the changes in the tax code, I expect those people will turn a blind eye to that, and just focus on the ways they might be incrementally worse off. Even if their gain in one area is many multiples of their loss in another area.
You already called me names. Bottom line: You get more deductions than I get, and are complaining you don’t get to have even more. And you want my sympathy. And support.
Because you NEED those deductions. Won’t make it without them. Although I do.
Man up. I’d be content if they would eliminate ALL “itemized deductions”, which are just a way of playing favorites. None of the government’s business if I give to charity, or buy a big house, and if they want to help with my healthcare, they can start by staying out of it.
I sure hope it eventually trickles down to the bond fund investments. We’ve been bond fund heavy since 2007, and until a couple of years ago, we were ahead of the stock market (and could sleep at night). Last year’s bond market was stagnant, and the last half of 2017 has been much of the same. I guess this is going to continue into 2018.
tax rates however, will most likely get a boot up once rats are in charge...
we needed to decrease the horrible insane federal taxes but a simple cut in rates would have worked nicely without jeopardizing our homes, because without a property tax break on federal income taxes, its going to be harder and harder for many to stay in their homes....the property tax deduction made staying in your home for a long time a possibility...now, not so much...
and just as I was about to be old, and turn 65, they take away the senior citizen deduction, whatever that was....
it just depends on who's sacred cow is being gorged and I guess those of us getting gorged can't even complain about it...
Unfortunately, leaving isn’t practical because we’ve been in our Silicon Valley house for 34 years (big capital gain). Paying the government to leave would astronomical - a multiple of what we paid for the house. Our goal is to get that money to the kids, not to the government. To do that, one of us has to croak in the house.
All the weirdness in tax laws, hot real estate markets, the tech boom, etc have put handcuffs on a lot of people over age 55. We are very fortunate to have settled in this area from that perspective. Not so fortunate having seen the state politics shift toward open-borders communism over 40 years.
re “wait and see.”
I just ran the numbers at http://taxplancalculator.com/ and it actually showed us SAVING $200 per year.
I was skeptical (even though lots of CPAs have blessed that site’s numbers), so I brought out my very detailed financial model and am coming up with similar numbers. So it looks like my panic was (hopefully) premature.
The HUGE help for us was the last-minute restoration of the $10,000 SALT deduction. That saved us $4,000 per year. Thank God for that!
In general, I'm in agreement with you. However, there may be some benefit to the country as a whole in deductibility of some items. If you tax something you get less of it. If you subsidize something you get more of it. As a country, I think we're better off with more home ownership. Home ownership makes people more stable. We become less a nation of transients, moving from apartment to apartment. Deductibility of mortgage interest, being a subsidy, results in more home ownership. Besides the effect on society of increasing stability, home ownership also is a boost to our total economy in a lot of ways. If people are living in apartments they don't have the space to store all their nonsensical purchases that sit idle more often than they're used. Without driveways and garages, they don't have the space for parking their RVs and water toys. Home building, home improvements, and home maintenance expenditures all contribute a lot more to our economy than would be the case if we all lived in Soviet style apartments.
“Deductibility of mortgage interest, being a subsidy, results in more home ownership.”
I’ve bought several homes, and NEVER thought about the deductability of my interest. If that was needed for me to afford it, I couldn’t afford it.
“Without driveways and garages, they don’t have the space for parking their RVs and water toys.”
Surely you are joking...
I’ve spent a good part of my military life RENTING homes. Didn’t do any harm at all to me or to society.
You're full of crap..........the standard deduction is increased, personal exemptions are eliminated, and the child tax credit is mildly boosted. ... The standard deduction will be raised to $24,000 for couples and $12,000 for individuals, a near doubling from current levels.
Then you still take the standard deduction.
“All deductions should be eliminated except for charitable donations....”
Yep! Suppose the government came out and said, “We’ll pay 10% of your mortgage payment for you!” Other than encouraging people to pay more for a house, and artificially inflating the cost of housing, just how would that help? Although it would at least be honest!
Not their business. Not their business to encourage people to have kids, either, which is another thing I doubt is actually tied to tax benefits. Never met anyone who had kids for the tax benefits!
I get a printout of my charitable deductions to my church, but don’t get anything for the money I send to poor family members - nor does it ever enter into my charitable giving. I’d be content to see ALL itemized deductions go away, but at least I can understand one for charity.
Education credits? Why? Just makes college more expensive.
The tax code is ALL about control and buying votes.
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