Buying a house? Don’t fall for the myths

Myth 1: Interest and taxes are deductible. You are getting paid by the government to own a house

Lets walk through an example. You make $100K a year. Pay $6K in real estate taxes and $10K in mortgage interest. There are two types of deductions available when you file your tax returns, a standard deduction and itemized deduction. For 2011 the standard deduction is $11,900. Assuming you did not buy a house your taxable income = $100K – $11.9K = $88.1K. At a marginal tax rate of 35% you will owe $30.8K in taxes. So effectively you paid $30.8K out of your pocket. Now assume you took the itemized deduction and deducted the entire taxes+interest. So taxable income = $100K-$16K=$84K. At 35% tax rate, tax = $29.4K. So great right, you paid less tax, so less out of pocket?

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