Recently in Housing Category

On January 28, the House of Representatives approved an economic stimulus bill with an official cost of $819 billion, and $275 billion of that went to tax cuts. One alternative stimulus bill that received quite a lot of support from the House Republicans consisted entirely of tax cuts and included provisions that would clearly not provide an immediate boost to the economy (like making permanent the Bush tax cuts for capital gains and dividends, which do not even expire until the end of 2010). CTJ released state-by-state figures showing that the poorest 60% of taxpayers would receive over half of the benefits of the key tax cuts under the House Democrats' plan and less than 5% of the benefits of the House GOP plan.

House Republicans put forth another plan, this one with strong backing from their leadership, that would reduce the bottom two income tax rates from 10% and 15% to 5% and 10%, and provide more tax cuts for businesses. CTJ released state-by-state figures showing that less than a quarter of the benefits of the individual tax cuts in this House GOP plan would go to the poorest 60% of taxpayers.

The House Democrats' plan was passed without a single Republican vote. Progressives found that the House-passed bill did contain some tax cuts that were basically giveaways for business (as CTJ also argued in its reports). But overall the House-passed bill promised to be an effective boost for the economy.

The Senate took up its bill the following week and managed to lard it up with several ineffective tax cuts. Fortunately, the House-Senate conference that met to work out the differences between the two chambers significantly scaled back many -- but not all -- of the ineffective tax cuts.

Amnesty for Offshore Tax Avoidance: Rejected on Senate Floor

As the stimulus package was being debated on the Senate floor, progressives did score several defensive victories. For example, the body rejected an amendment offered by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) that would provide a tax amnesty for corporations that had moved profits offshore (often only on paper to avoid taxes). Profits that were "repatriated" to the United States would be subject to an almost non-existent 5.25 percent tax rate instead of the usual 35 percent tax rate. As explained in a CTJ report on "repatriation," this idea was tried five years ago and did not lead to any of the job creation that was promised. Worse, repeating this debacle would only encourage companies to move profits offshore, since they would figure that if they waited a few years, Congress would once again be in the mood to enact a tax amnesty. Fortunately, a solid majority of senators saw that this was terrible tax policy and rejected this amendment.

The Senate's Senseless Six

But plenty of ill-advised tax cuts did make their way into the Senate-passed bill, some as provisions included in the bill reported out of the Finance Committee, and others adopted as amendments on the Senate floor. Earlier this week, CTJ ranked several tax cuts included only in the Senate bill (or taking a larger form in the Senate bill) as the "Six Worst Tax Cuts in the Senate Stimulus Bill." (Read the full report here or the two-page summary here.) The largest of those six tax cuts is included in the final package, but several others have been excluded (or mostly excluded) from the deal.

1. One-year AMT "patch": included in conference agreement.

This one-year reduction in the Alternative Minimum Tax will provide essentially no benefit to the poorest 60 percent of Americans -- and unfortunately was included in the final stimulus package. For more details, as well as state-by-state figures showing how taxpayers would be affected, see CTJ's new report on the AMT "patch."

2. Homebuyer tax credit: dramatically scaled back in conference agreement.

The House-passed bill had a version of this provision that waived the repayment requirement for the limited $7,500 first-time homebuyer credit that Congress enacted in its housing bill last year. The Senate adopted an amendment by Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA) (who voted against the bill itself) to provide a $15,000, non-refundable tax credit with no income limits for any home purchase (not just for first-time home purchases). The Senate version would cost $35 billion more than the House version. Fortunately, this provision is scaled down in the conference agreement to something closer to the House version, with an increase in the maximum credit to $8,000, at a cost of $6.6 billion.

3. Deduction for automobile purchases: dramatically scaled back in conference agreement.

This $11 billion provision was added to the Senate bill as an amendment offered by Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) as an above-the-line deduction for interest payments on an automobile purchase as well as the state and local sales taxes paid on that purchase. Apparently, members of the House-Senate conference decided that subsidizing consumer debt is not such a great idea. This provision has been reduced to a $1.7 billion provision allowing a deduction for just the sales taxes paid, but not the interest, on an automobile purchase.

4. Suspension of taxes on UI benefits: included in conference agreement.

The Senate included in its bill this provision to eliminate federal income taxes on the first $2,400 of unemployment insurance benefits in tax year 2009. The best way to target aid to those who could use some help is to target aid by income level. This provision would target aid to those whose income takes a particular form rather than those whose income is below a particular level, meaning a person whose spouse earns $300,000 a year would still get this tax break if they have unemployment benefits. This provision is included in the conference agreement.

5. Five-year carryback of net operating losses (NOLs): dramatically scaled back in conference agreement.

This provision would put money in the hands of business owners but do nothing to change their incentives to invest or create jobs. The version of this tax cut included in the House-passed bill would cost $15 billion while the Senate version would cost $19.5 billion. Fortunately, the version of this tax cut in the conference agreement is smaller than either of these, with a cost of only $1 billion (officially). The conference agreement would allow this tax cut only for companies with gross receipts under $15 million.

6. Delayed recognition of certain cancellation of debt income: included in conference agreement.

Under current law, any debt forgiveness that you enjoy is considered income subject to the federal income tax. (If it was not, then we would all want our employers to issue us loans and then forgive the debt, rather than paying us salaries.) This provision, which was included in the Senate bill and also in the conference agreement, weakens this essential rule. It allows companies that have debt cancellation income to defer taxes on that income for five years and then pay the tax in increments over the following five years.

The economic stimulus bill that the Senate approved today includes several tax cuts that are not in the stimulus bill approved by the House of Representatives two weeks ago and which should be excluded from the final bill that goes to the President.

The bill approved by the House of Representatives two weeks ago has a total cost of about $819 billion, while the cost of the Senate bill had grown last week to about $940 billion. A group of self-styled centrist Senators then put forth a compromise that took exactly the wrong approach to cutting down the costs: They mostly removed government spending that economists believe will stimulate the economy -- like aid to state governments, school construction, food stamps -- while they left in most of the regressive tax cuts that Senators have added to the bill.

A new report from Citizens for Tax Justice lists the six most regressive and ineffective tax cuts included in the Senate stimulus bill that are not in the House bill (or, in some cases, are much more limited in the House bill).

Legislation to kickstart the economy is badly needed. Lawmakers who are sincere in their desire to stimulate the economy in the most cost-effective manner should seek to exclude from the final bill these tax cuts, which economists believe will do little to boost consumer demand. They add $124 billion (according to official projections) to the cost of the Senate's stimulus bill compared to the House stimulus bill. The real cost of these provisions is considerably more.

Here are CTJ's worst six tax cuts in the Senate stimulus bill:

1. One-year AMT "patch"
2. Home buyers' tax credit
3. Deduction for automobile purchases
4. Suspension of taxes on UI benefits
5. Five-year carryback of net operating losses (NOLs)
6. Delayed recognition of certain cancellation of debt income

Read the CTJ Report: http://www.ctj.orgpdf/sixworsttaxcuts.pdf
Read the Summary: http://www.ctj.orgpdf/sixworsttaxcutssummary.pdf

The report also explains that some tax cuts could actually be effective in stimuluating the economy -- if they are extremely targeted to poor and working class families. The Making Work Pay Credit and the EITC expansion that appear in both the House and Senate bills accomplish this. So do the provisions in each bill to make the Child Tax Credit more available to poor families, but the report explains that the House provision does a much better job of this than the Senate provision.

A House-Senate conference will now attempt to work out the differences between the House and Senate bills and settle on a final bill, which President Obama wants to sign by the end of this week.

The long-sought housing bill is likely to become law by next week. President Bush dropped his veto threat this week and the House passed a revised version of the bill by a vote of 272-152. On Friday, the Senate voted 80-13 for cloture on the bill and a final vote is expected on Saturday.

The bill will temporarily allow the Treasury Department to prop up the government-sponsored mortgage funding companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and will also create a federal regulator to oversee them. It will also allow the Federal Housing Authority (FHA), to guarantee refinanced mortgages for homeowners in danger of foreclosure, and will provide communities with additional Community Development Block Grant funds to buy foreclosed or abandoned properties.

The bill includes about $15 billion in tax provisions that are presented as help for homeowners and people in the home-building industry. One provision will create a refundable $7,500 credit for first-time homebuyers that must be paid back in equal installments over the next 15 years. This is the equivalent of an interest-free loan. Eligibility is phased out beginning with taxpayers with incomes of $75,000 (or married couples with incomes of $150,000). It's not clear how helpful this could be, partly because it would not make any money available at the time a down payment is made but would be claimed afterwards.

Another provision will create a deduction for property taxes for non-itemizers, which is capped at $500 per spouse. Most people with a home mortgage do itemize in order to take advantage of the home mortgage interest deduction, so many struggling homeownders may not be helped by this.

The bill also includes provisions to expand the Low Income Housing Tax Credit and to increase the use of bonds by state and local government to address housing needs.

The cost of the tax breaks are offset by revenue-raising provisions. About $9.5 will be raised by requiring banks to report to the IRS credit card transactions for most businesses and $1.4 billion will be raised by limiting the provision of the tax code that currently allows someone who sells a home to exclude the resulting gains from taxable income.

Another 7.6 billion will be raised by delaying the implementation of a tax break for multinational corporations that should never have been enacted in the first place. The soon-to-take-effect law (the new "worldwide interest allocation" rules) is designed to make it easier for multinational corporations to take U.S. tax deductions for interest payments that are really expenses of earning foreign profits and therefore should not be deductible. Implementation of this tax break will be delayed two years, until 2011.

The U.S. Senate is now expected to wait until after the July 4 recess to vote on a bill (H.R. 3221) that reforms the government-sponsored mortgage funding companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, modernizes the Federal Housing Authority (FHA), allows the FHA to guarantee refinanced mortgages for homeowners in danger of foreclosure, and provides communities with additional Community Development Block Grant funds to buy foreclosed or abandoned properties.

The bill also includes over $14 billion in tax cuts aimed at housing. A provision costing $4.3 billion over ten years creates a refundable $8,000 credit for first-time homebuyers that must be paid back in equal installments over the next 15 years. This is the equivalent of an interest-free loan. Eligibility is phased out beginning with taxpayers with incomes of $75,000 (or married couples with incomes of $150,000). It's not clear how helpful this could be, partly because it would not make any money available at the time a down payment is made but would be claimed afterwards.

Another provision costing $1.5 billion over ten years creates a deduction for property taxes for non-itemizers, which is capped at $500 per spouse. Because of the home mortgage interest deduction that is currently available for itemizers, most people with a mortgage already itemize their deductions. That means that the main beneficiaries of this provision will likely be homeowners who don't have mortgages -- even though this is a bill that is supposed to address a mortgage foreclosure crisis.

The bill also includes provisions to expand the Low Income Housing Tax Credit and to increase the use of bonds by state and local government to address housing needs.

Limitation Interferes with State and Local Property Tax Decisions

Disturbingly, the new non-itemizer deduction for property taxes will be denied to people living in a jurisdiction that recently raised its property taxes, discouraging local governments from raising revenue needed to deal with growing fiscal problems. State and local governments hardly need an extra reason to avoid raising property taxes, given the unpopularity of that particular form of taxation at this time despite massive budget shortfalls in the states. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out that this limitation interferes with state and local prerogatives and would create an administrative headache for the IRS.

Most Unjustified Tax Break Left Out of New Version in the Senate

Fortunately, the very worst provision of the previous Senate bill has been dropped from this version. That is the "net operating loss carryback" provision (or NOL carryback) that would have allowed companies taking losses this year and next year to deduct them against taxes they paid in the previous four years (instead of the previous two years, as currently allowed). This would basically be a tax break with no strings attached for any company (not just home builders). Citizens for Tax Justice and several other groups had issued harsh criticisms of the previous Senate bill because of this and other provisions.

Senate Bill Includes Revenue-Raising Provisions But Is Not Quite Deficit-Neutral

The bill replaces $9.8 billion of the revenue by requiring banks to report to the IRS credit card transactions for most businesses. It replaces another $1.4 billion by limiting the provision that currently allows someone who sells a home to exclude the resulting gains from taxable income. Some more revenue is replaced by increases in various penalties, but the bill still leaves about $2.5 billion of the $14 cost unpaid for, a shortcoming that Democrats in the House of Representatives will likely attempt to rectify when they receive the bill.

Bill Faces Amendment Dispute, Veto Threats

This week Senator John Ensign (R-NV) demanded that a $8 billion amendment to extend tax breaks for renewable energy -- without any revenue-raising provisions to offset the costs -- be attached to the housing bill. He has promised to use procedural mechanisms to slow the consideration of the bill if this amendment is not adopted. This forced Senate leaders to push consideration of the bill off into the week after the July 4 recess.

Even after the Senate approves the bill, the House may approve another version that improves upon the revenue-raising provisions or other parts of the bill, which would require another Senate vote of approval. Then it faces a veto threat from the White House, partly because it feels the credit for first-time homebuyers is a waste of resources.

On Thursday, the House of Representatives passed two bills that are part of a housing stimulus package promoted by House Democratic leaders. The first is the Neighborhood Stabilization Act (H.R. 5818), which would make available $15 billion in grants for state and local governments and non-profits to buy up and rehabilitate foreclosed homes, in order to prevent neighborhoods from being adversely affected by vacancies. The second, larger bill is the American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act. This consists of several separate pieces of legislation offered as amendments to replace the language in the housing bill passed in the Senate, H.R. 3221. It includes language that reforms the government-sponsored mortgage funding companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, modernizes the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) and allows the FHA to guarantee refinanced mortgages for homeowners in danger of foreclosure.

Housing Tax Provisions in the House Package

Another piece of legislation included in the larger bill is the $11 billion tax bill approved by the House Ways and Means Committee a month ago. It includes a refundable $7,500 credit for first-time homebuyers that must be paid back in equal installments over the next 15 years, which is the equivalent of an interest-free loan. Eligibility is phased out beginning with taxpayers with incomes of $70,000 (or married couples with incomes of $140,000). It's not clear how helpful this could be, partly because it would not make any money available at the time a downpayment is made but would be claimed afterwards.

The House bill also has a deduction for property taxes for non-itemizers, which is capped at $350 per spouse. Because of the home mortgage interest deduction that is currently available for itemizers, most people with a mortgage currently do itemize their deductions. That means that the main beneficiaries of this provision will likely be homeowners who don't have mortgages -- even though this is a bill that is supposed to address a mortgage foreclosure crisis.

The bill also includes provisions to expand the Low Income Housing Tax Credit and to increase the use of bonds by state and local government to address housing needs.

Senate Bill Widely Panned

A month ago, the Senate passed a housing bill that was widely panned by housing advocates, policy experts, and labor, partly because of its inclusion of a "net operating loss carryback" provision (or NOL carryback). This provision would allow companies taking losses this year and next year to deduct them against taxes they paid in the previous four years (instead of the previous two years, as currently allowed). This would basically amount to a tax break with no strings attached for any company (not just home builders).

It's highly unlikely that this will prevent layoffs of employees as its proponents claim. Companies will always have an incentive to lay off workers if no one is seeking to buy whatever the company produces. Handing the companies a tax break with no strings attached does nothing to change that. Contrary to the claims of backers of the tax break, labor groups have argued that this provision could actually encourage construction companies to dump their excess housing inventory on the market more quickly since the tax break would cushion the losses that result from selling at lower prices.

The Senate bill also includes a $500 per-spouse deduction of property taxes for homeowners who do not itemize their deductions, which is larger than the similar deduction in the house legislation but will still save most families only $150 at the most. This deduction will be denied to people living in a jurisdiction that recently raised its property taxes, discouraging local governments from raising revenue needed to deal with growing fiscal problems.

Also included in the Senate bill is a $7,000 non-refundable credit for the purchase of a foreclosed home, which will do little to make housing more affordable and might actually encourage foreclosure. Unlike the credit in the House version, the Senate bill would not require the credit to be paid back over time, but it would be non-refundable, meaning fewer families could benefit from it. The Senate bill also includes provisions expanding the use of bonds by state and local government, like the House bill.

Unlike the tax provisions approved by the House, the Senate's tax cuts would not be paid for.

Veto Threats from the White House

President Bush opposes all of these bills, arguing that in many cases they reward lenders or homebuyers who acted irresponsibly. The President has threatened to veto the two House bills. White House Press Secretary Dana Perino even attacked the Senate bill, saying it "will likely do more harm than good by bailing out lenders and speculators and passing on costs to other Americans who play by the rules and honor their mortgage debt obligations." The differing provisions of the House and Senate bills and the opposition from the President make it very unclear what legislation -- if any -- will be enacted to address the housing situation.

Several organizations came together on tax day to call on the House of Representatives to pass legislation dealing with the housing crisis -- and to criticize the Senate for passing a bill that mainly gives tax breaks to businesses. (Click here to view coverage by Lou Dobbs). At the press event organized by the Laborers' International Union of North America (LiUNA), the union's president Terence O'Sullivan and others blasted the Senate bill, which CTJ criticized earlier this month. "To call it pigs at the trough would give a bad name to pigs," O'Sullivan said. Representatives from the Economic Policy Institute, the Center for American Progress, ACORN, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), as well as a woman facing foreclosure on her home all called for action by Congress, and several noted that most of the action needed would be outside the tax code. CTJ director Robert McIntyre said, "If we gave this issue to the agriculture committees, they'd probably give us farm subsidies, so if we give this problem to the tax-writing committees they give us tax breaks because that's what they do. I'm pretty sure we have committees in Congress to deal with housing."

In the House, that committee is the Financial Services Committee chaired by Barney Frank, who wants to allow the Federal Housing Administration to guarantee refinanced home mortgages. Another provision that many advocates want would allow a judge in some situations to rewrite the terms of a home mortgage, but Democratic leaders in the House have cast doubt about whether this can be passed.

The Ways and Means Committee (the tax-writing committee in the House) approved a package of tax provisions that was an improvement over those passed by the Senate and which may be attached to a broader bill. The Ways and Means bill does not include the very worst provision in the Senate bill, the "net operating loss carryback" provision (or NOL carryback). This provision would allow companies taking losses this year and next year to deduct them against taxes they paid in the previous four years (instead of the previous two years, as currently allowed) even though it is highly unlikely that this will prevent layoffs of employees or do anything for home builders other than encourage them to dump their inventory.

Unlike the Senate legislation, the Ways and Means Committee bill includes revenue-raising provisions to offset the costs of the tax breaks. One would require that brokers of publicly traded securities report the basis of a given security in a transaction to ensure that capital gains taxes are paid properly. Another offset would delay and limit an unnecessary tax break for corporations, "worldwide interest allocation," which hasn't even gone into effect yet. (For more on these offsets, see last week's article on the House legislation.)

Both bills include a deduction for state and local property taxes available to people who don't itemize deductions (currently this is only allowed for itemizers). At Tuesday's event McIntyre pointed out that most people with mortgages are itemizers, so the people most likely to benefit from this are homeowners without mortgages, making it difficult to see how the provision has anything to do with a mortgage foreclosure crisis. Both bills also include a credit for buying a home, but in neither case would the credit be available for a down payment. It would not be received until after after a homebuyer files taxes after the home is purchased.

In the House version, this is a refundable credit of $7,500 of first-time home-buyers, but it must be paid back over 15 years. In the Senate version, it's a non-refundable $7,000 credit for the purchase of foreclosed homes, which actually might encourage foreclosure. The credit in the Senate bill is disallowed to taxpayers in jurisdictions that raise property taxes, which would hamstring state and local governments struggling with fiscal problems from raising revenue to avoid cuts in public services.

House leaders are hoping to have a full bill ready for a floor vote in early May.

On Thursday, the Senate approved the Foreclosure Prevention Act, an $18 billion package of tax breaks and spending that proponents argue will ameliorate the housing crisis, by a vote of 84 to 12. The bill consists of the tax breaks criticized here last week and costing about $10.8 billion over ten years, around $4 billion to be spent through the Community Development Block Grant for local governments to buy or redevelop abandoned and foreclosed homes, and other amendments approved before passage that raised the cost by around $3 billion.

The tax breaks include one provision that would allow companies taking losses this year and next year to deduct them against taxes they paid in the previous four years (instead of the previous two years, as currently allowed) even though it is highly unlikely that this will prevent layoffs of employees or do anything for home builders other than encourage them to dump their inventory.

Another break included is a $500 per-spouse deduction of property taxes for homeowners who do not itemize their deductions, which will probably save families $150 at the most. It will be denied to people living in a jurisdiction that recently raised its property taxes, discouraging local governments from raising revenue needed to deal with growing state fiscal problems. Also included is a $7,000 non-refundable credit for the purchase of a foreclosed home which will do little to make housing more affordable and might actually encourage foreclosure.

The House Moves in a Different Direction

Democratic leaders in the House have indicated that they plan to move in a different direction. On Wednesday the House Ways and Means Committee approved an $11 billion package that does not include the loss carryback provision. It includes a refundable $7,500 credit for first-time homebuyers (of any homes, not just foreclosed homes) that must be paid back in equal installments over the next 15 years, which is the equivalent of an interest-free loan. Eligibility is phased out beginning with taxpayers with incomes of $70,000 (or married couples with incomes of $140,000). The House bill also has a deduction for property taxes for non-itemizers, but ,capped at $350 per spouse, it is even smaller than the one in the Senate version.

Whether these provisions will help many people obtain or keep a home seems questionable. Offering people a small interest-free loan and a tiny cut in property taxes doesn't seem useful for those who are facing foreclosure or for communities that want to preserve their neighborhoods. But at least the House bill does not include the Senate's giveaway to business, the loss carryback provision.

Other changes in the House bill include modifications to the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit and other provisions. Both the House version and the Senate version have provisions to allow increased use of tax-exempt housing bonds by states and localities.

The House bill also has provisions to offset the costs of the bill, and these are provisions that should be passed regardless of Congress's search for revenue. One would require that brokers of publicly traded securities report the basis of a given security in a transaction to ensure that capital gains taxes are paid properly. Very generally, a capital gain is the difference between the price a person pays for property and the price the person sells it for later. The "basis" is the initial purchase price, and if it is not reported correctly, this can lead to an underpayment in capital gains taxes.

Another offset would delay and limit an unnecessary tax break for corporations, "worldwide interest allocation," which hasn't even gone into effect yet. Tax rules already let multinationals take U.S. tax deductions for some of their interest expenses that are really foreign. In 2004, Congress actually expanded this loophole with worldwide interest allocation, a change that is scheduled to take effect starting in 2009.

The final outcome for this legislation is unclear given the disagreements between the House and the Senate and given that the White House has signaled that it has misgivings about the Senate bill.

The Foreclosure Prevention Act introduced in the Senate this week includes several measures that lawmakers argue will address the home mortgage foreclosure crisis and the problems plaguing the home construction industry. Judging from the information we have so far, it appears that the tax provisions in the bill are likely to help large corporate homebuilders and yet do little for ordinary Americans who are either struggling to keep their homes or who are hurt by the downturn in the home construction industry.

These tax provisions include:

Net Operating Loss Carryback

Cost: $6 billion ($25.5 billion over 2 years, $6 billion over 10 years)

As a general rule, a company operating at a loss in a given year will not have to pay taxes for that year, because its deductions will wipe out its taxable income. Under current law, if a company has excess deductions beyond its taxable income for the year, it can apply those excess deductions not only against earnings in later years, but also against income taxed in the previous two years. That allows it to get previously paid taxes refunded. The Senate bill would expand this benefit by allowing companies to apply losses in 2008 or 2009 to taxes paid in the previous four years.

This benefit would be available for all companies, but proponents in the Senate have argued that this will particularly ease the pain felt by home-construction companies. Proponents say the loss carryback provision will make it less likely that construction companies will need to lay off workers, and that it will somehow reduce the pressure on them to quickly sell their excess inventory at a loss.

But there is no reason to think that this tax break will have these positive effects. Companies will always have an incentive to lay off workers if no one is seeking to buy whatever the company produces. Handing the companies a tax break with no strings attached does nothing to change that. Contrary to the claims of backers of the tax break, labor groups have persuasively argued that this provision could actually encourage construction companies to dump their excess housing inventory on the market more quickly since the tax break would cushion the losses that result from selling at lower prices.

In terms of its effects on the housing industry, the main effect of this corporate giveaway will be to reward large corporate home-builders who helped perpetrate the sub-prime lending debacle. Other major beneficiaries will be large corporations who use the "bonus depreciation" tax break enacted earlier this year to reduce their taxable incomes below zero, and who will enjoy outright negative tax rates if this NOL carryback provision is enacted.

Non-Itemizer Tax Deduction for State and Local Property Taxes

Cost: $1.5 billion

Currently, homeowners are allowed to take an itemized deduction for state and local property taxes. But less than a third of taxpayers bother to itemize their deductions, because most find it more beneficial to use the standard deduction. The Senate bill would offer non-itemizers a deduction for property taxes on top of the standard deduction this year. The new deduction would be limited to $500 for single taxpayers and $1,000 for married couples.

Proponents of this provision apparently fail to understand the purposes of the standard deduction: (a) to make the tax code fairer and (b) to make tax filing simpler for most people by giving them a simple deduction that is bigger than what they'd get from itemizing.

Right now, the only homeowners who do not itemize their property taxes are those for whom the standard deduction ($10,900 for couples) is bigger than their total expenses for state and local taxes, interest, donations, etc. In effect, non-itemizing homeowners already get to write off more than their total property taxes.

Adding an additional property tax deduction on top of the generous one already implicitly allowed to non-itemizers would make tax filing more complicated and tax enforcement more difficult.

The new deduction would provide little help to those who take advantage of it. Families who have no taxable income already would not be helped at all. For couples with two children, that includes those making less than $25,000. For couples with two children making more than $25,000 but less than $41,000, the maximum tax saving would be only $100. From $41,000 to $90,000 the maximum tax saving would be only $150. And above that level, the vast majority of homeowners already itemize deductions, and would thus get no benefit.

To illustrate how little thought went into the design of this foolish tax break, the new non-itemizer property tax deduction would be denied to taxpayers if their locality raised its property tax rate this year or next. The apparent goal of this strange rule is to punish taxpayers whose state or local governments have mitigated revenue losses caused by declining home values and the economic downturn. The Senate apparently hopes to encourage local government to deal with falling revenues by cutting back on public services such as education instead.

Foreclosed Home Purchase Tax Credit

Cost: $1.6 billion

The bill also includes a $7,000 non-refundable tax credit that can be claimed over two years by people who purchase foreclosed homes during the next 12 months. It seems unlikely that this provision would make foreclosed homes more affordable for buyers who earn enough to take advantage of this subsidy (more than $57,000 for couples with two children). Instead, it will probably lead to higher prices for the foreclosed homes. Indeed, supporters of this provision admit as much. "The $7,000 tax credit for those who buy foreclosed properties should stimulate demand for them and prevent their prices from falling further, said Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.)," according to the Washington Post (Apr. 5, 2008, p. D1).