Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Home Mortgage Deduction Concentrated in Few Locations

Today's front page story in the Chronicle on the concentration of benefits from the home mortgage interest deduction WAY understates the effect.  If you go to the Pew Trust's report, you find that the researchers spread the total amount of deductions across not just all homeowners, but all tax filers in the metro area--whether homeowners or renters.  So while the story says that San Jose residents received an average $7700 in 2007, once you pull out the renters (37%) and those that take the standard deduction, and thus adjust the denominator, the "average" will shoot way up.