Subject: home interest deduction Comment: The following excerpt from today’s news is very disturbing. As a new home owner with a large mortgage I implore you not to eliminate the mortgage deduction. Please remember that here in California a small house can have a huge mortgage. If the deduction goes we will have to sell and there will be a major financial disaster out here. Thanks. Health, mortgage deductions eyed Advisory panel won't urge national retail sales tax By William L. Watts, MarketWatchLast Update: 6:43 PM ET Oct. 11, 2005 WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- A presidential tax-reform panel on Tuesday indicated it was ready to urge changes in the tax treatment of health-care benefits and mortgage-interest deductions when it issues its final report in the next few weeks. Details are yet to be worked out, but members broadly agreed at the panel's penultimate public meeting to explore the possibility of putting a limit on the amount of health-care benefits that employers would be able to provide workers tax-free. The panel also leaned toward altering, but not eliminating, the mortgage-interest deduction and other benefits afforded homeowners, including the possibility of lowering the $1 million mortgage-interest cap now in place. Panel members said current law has fueled speculation and increasingly risky lending practices. Former Sen. Connie Mack, the chairman of President Bush's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, said panelists agreed on the need to modify existing housing provisions, while ensuring that the tax code continues to "promote homeownership," while also addressing concerns that the benefits under current rules are "not shared equally." |