“In addition to family, social, and equity wealth benefits it brings, homeownership offers extraordinary tax advantages,” as highlighted in this NAHB Eye On Housing article from David Logan.
Homeowners saw their tax bills trimmed by more than $100 billion in 2014 according to estimates by the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) and NAHB analysis. The mortgage interest deduction (MID) alone accounted for $72.4 billion in tax savings, while the real estate tax deduction (RETX) saved homeowners an additional $30.2 billion. Rounding out the group of tax advantages is the exclusion of capital gains on the sale of primary residences, which reduces tax liability by nearly $30 billion annually.
While that last number is still large, the number of taxpayers who benefitted from the capital gains tax exclusion (more than 3 million) was dwarfed by the number claiming the MID (34.5 million) and/or RETX (33.6 million).
