Home, the mother of all tax shelters

By Jeff Schnepper

You've heard me talk about how owning a home is the world's greatest tax shelter. You can deduct mortgage interest and property taxes. And almost always, you can keep the gains when you sell your home.

In the past few years, Congress and the Internal Revenue Service have made your home potentially an even greater tax shelter than it has ever been, especially if you use your home for your business.

How long these breaks stay in place is a question mark. Many experts believe the tax breaks that Congress gave homeowners were big reasons home prices shot up so much in many markets and perhaps laid the foundation for the housing slump that began in 2006.

In 2005, President Bush's Advisory Panel on Tax Reform suggested we should limit some of the goodies.

But as the lack of action on any of the panel's suggestions show, changes take years to become law. So enjoy. Here are all the deductions and benefits you get when you pay homage to the mortgage gods and go into more debt than your parents earned in their lifetimes. We'll start with the bread-and-butter breaks and then hit the new wrinkles.

Taxes

First, you get to deduct all the real-property taxes you pay. That includes all state or local taxes for the general welfare. It doesn't count any garbage collection fees or homeowner association charges specifically stated and billed.

If you're escrowing for the taxes, you get the deduction when your bank makes the payment.

Even if you're a tenant shareholder in a co-op apartment building, you get to deduct your share of any property taxes paid.

There's no limit on the number of properties on which you can deduct taxes paid. If you have 10 homes, you can deduct the taxes on all 10.

But watch out: If your deductions are too great, you could be required to use the alternative minimum tax. The AMT is designed to ensure that everyone pays some tax and does so by forcing you to take fewer deductions. Every year, more of us get sucked into its weird, expensive world. Every year, Congress talks about repealing it. But like I said, it takes years for a good idea to become law.

Interest

Uncle Sam wants to put you in a home. Sorry, that doesn't sound right. How about: Uncle Sam wants to put you in a house? In any case, our government wants to subsidize your home purchase. It does that by making your interest payments deductible.

Interest paid on the purchase of your principal residence is deductible. You can even finance the purchase of additional land adjacent to your home and deduct the interest as qualified residence interest. You can also deduct the interest you pay to buy a second residence or vacation home.

The personal-interest deduction is limited to the first $1 million of debt. If you plan to spend more than $1 million for your house, call your accountant.

You can also deduct the interest on as much as $100,000 worth of home-equity debt. As long as the house has the equity and the debt is secured by that equity, the IRS doesn't care what you do with the borrowed money. You can use it for whatever you want, including a vacation or a party to celebrate your newfound deductions.

If you're in the 25% bracket, $100 in interest paid takes only $75 out of your pocket. Uncle Sam pays the other $25 in income taxes forgone.

This is always one to watch. As I noted, in its 2005 report, the president's tax panel thought the interest deduction should be limited. Congress has not yet weighed in on the topic. Having to campaign for re-election does that to people.

And remember: As you pay down the mortgage, the amount of interest in each payment falls. In the first year of a $250,000, fixed-rate loan paying 7% a year, your deduction will come to a bit more than $17,400. By the 10th year, the deduction shrinks to $15,200. By the 15th year, it's just $13,200.

Gain exclusion

Here's where, a few years ago, Congress and the IRS gave away the farm.

In the good old days (i.e., before 2002), you had to worry about having to roll over your gain into a new home. Or work to qualify for the $125,000 gain exclusion if you're age 55 or older.

The current rule is good no matter how old you are.

If the property was your principal residence for any two of the five years prior to sale, you can exclude from taxes $250,000 in gain (or $500,000 on a joint return). If you qualify under the two-out-of-five rule, you normally sign an affidavit at settlement. If the house sold for less than $250,000/$500,000, the sales amount isn't even reported to the IRS because you have no tax liability on that sale.

This is no one-time exclusion. You don't have to buy a new house. You can even rent, and you can get another full exclusion every two years -- or whenever you qualify. But if you have a $250,000/$500,000 gain every two years, I want to meet your real-estate agent and get in on the gold mine.

You can even get a partial exclusion based on the time of use and ownership. But you get the partial exclusion only if the sale is because of a change in place of employment, health reasons or unforeseen circumstances.

The partial exclusion is based on the maximum exclusion, not on the basis of your actual realized profit. So, say you bought a home for $250,000 and sold it, because of a job change, for a $25,000 profit after only one year.

Because the sale was covered by a change in employment, you get a partial exclusion. It was your principal residence for one year out of two, so 50% of the maximum exclusion, up to $125,000 in total gain, is excluded. Because that's more than the $25,000 gain you actually realized, no tax is due on the sale. That's because you exclude half the maximum allowed, not the gain itself. It's a major tax break. Not many properties are going to appreciate more than $125,000/$250,000 in one year.

Continued: Change in employment is the key to an exclusion

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