This week we are sharing with you good reasons why you should buy a home.
There are tax breaks for buying a home!
Buying your first home is a huge step. When you leave the world of renting behind, you begin building equity in an investment. Uncle Sam is there to help ease the pain of high mortgage payments.
The deductions now available to you as a homeowner will reduce your tax bill substantially. If you have been claiming the standard deduction up until now, the extra write-offs from owning a home almost certainly will make you an itemizer. Suddenly, the state taxes you pay and your charitable gifts will earn you tax-saving deductions, too. Here are a few examples of tax breaks available to home owners:
1. Mortgage interest. For most people, the biggest tax break from owning a home comes from deducting mortgage interest. You can deduct interest on up to $1 million of debt used to acquire your home. Your lender will send you Form 1098 in January listing the mortgage interest you paid during the previous year. That is the amount you deduct on Schedule A. Be sure the 1098 includes any interest you paid from the date you closed on the home to the end of that month. This amount is listed on your settlement sheet for the home purchase. You can deduct it even if the lender does not include it on the Form 1098. If you are in the 25% tax bracket, deducting the interest basically means Uncle Sam is paying 25% of it for you. A $1,000 deduction will reduce your tax bill by $250.
2. Points. When you buy a house, you usually have to pay "points" to the lender to get your mortgage. This charge is usually expressed as a percentage of the loan amount. If the loan is secured by your home and the number of points you pay is typical for your area, the points are deductible as interest if you paid enough cash at closing -- via your down payment, for example -- to cover the points. For example, if you paid two points on a $300,000 mortgage -- $6,000 -- you can deduct the points as long as you put at least $6,000 into the deal. And, believe it or not, you get to deduct the points even if you persuaded the seller to pay them for you as part of the deal. The deductible amount should be shown on your 1098 form.
At HOPE we help our clients everyday in making wise decisions regarding their credit. If you would like to know more about how the HOPE program works please give us a call at 704-503-3669. We are waiting on your call.
