> Ok, lets play this game. From now on its renters that have to pay 50% of the property tax. No? But you get to deduct it! an extra deduction for you! whats not to like?!

Renters already are paying a piece of the property tax. It's built into the rent. They just can't deduct it.

Ok that may be true but why should they be allowed to deduct it? They are not a business owner (unlike the landlord). Its like allowing people to deduct 10% of everything they buy from Amazon because they are paying a part of Amazon’s warehousing costs.

I'm not advocating for renters to be able to deduct a piece of the underlying property tax. I don't think it makes sense to have property tax as a federal deduction at all.

In general, I'm not sure how great it is that we favor home ownership over renting in our tax policy. My bigger issue is being able to deduct mortgage interest but not rent. Mortgage interest is essentially rent on money, so I've always thought it'd be fair to make rent (or a percentage of it at least) deductible as well. Or, even better, eliminate the mortgage interest deduction entirely.

Full disclosure, I'm a homeowner. Fuller disclosure, my home is paid off, so it's easy for me to say these deductions shouldn't exist. I would gladly give up the property tax deduction if that additional revenue was used for something other than cutting taxes for the wealthy, though.

OK, I see your point with mortgage interest interested being deductible.

Renters are already paying all of the property tax. The expenses for any business (including being a landlord) are, in the long term, paid by the customers. Otherwise the business becomes insolvent.

I concede renters may be paying a part of it.

However if a landlord is like a business owner, and property tax is a business expense, why should they not be allowed to deduct it (just like any other business expense)?

Amazon has expenses too related to storing products in warehouses, which they can deduct. Part of that cost is priced into the product. So in theory, customers should be able to deduct a portion of every product they buy from Amazon?

Just my opinion, but society benefits from having manageable costs of living. I acknowledge that landlords have a business to run, but we also have a policy favoring ownership. Not allowing a property tax or non-occupied mortgage interest deduction raises the costs of being a landlord, disfavoring that activity a bit from a policy perspective. That, in turn, may lower housing costs (and increase owner-occupation of primary residences) by taking some landlords out of that market.

We built a broad middle class by favoring home ownership, allowing regular folks to build wealth in the form of their primary residence. I think we need to get back to that, and that does mean making policy decisions that eats into the margins of landlords.

> allowing regular folks to build wealth in the form of their primary residence

Sometimes that's true, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes people wind up with underwater mortgages, rather than building wealth.

I don't think other business expenses should be deductible either, as that incentivizes inefficient businesses.

I would favor eliminating all business deductions, combined with lowering the tax rate enough to make the change revenue neutral.