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Re:Some young people are buying houses with friends by silverlake on Wednesday March 06, 2019 @04:23PM (#19322938)
In the US 2 single people who jointly own a home can EACH deduct the interest on up to $1m loan. So consider having a legal agreement for joint ownership instead. I’ve done this and deduct an extra $20k.
Re:Some young people are buying houses with friends by jcoplan on Wednesday March 06, 2019 @04:30PM (#19323019)
What is the basis for saying that two single people can deduct the same interest paid? How could this possibly not be fraud? You are double claiming the interest.
Re:Some young people are buying houses with friends by dragonwriter on Wednesday March 06, 2019 @07:50PM (#19324627)
> What is the basis for saying that two single people can deduct the same interest paid?

They can't, but the maximum limit on both mortgage interest ($100K) and the indebtedness on which you can deduct interest paid ($1.1 million) apply per-taxpayer for unmarried co-owners. You still can only each deduct what you actually pay. This is a result of a 9th Circuit City decision IRS decided not to appeal that almost certainly want the intent of the law, and was not the way the law was applied prior to the decision.

I'm surprised Republicans haven't framed it as a new marriage penalty and jammed a “fix” that would increase the limit for married taxpayers to double the single-taxpayer limit into one of their tax bills, since it would let them champion marriage, rail against the perfidy of the Ninth Circuit, and cut taxes on the rich all at the same time.

Re:Some young people are buying houses with friends by silverlake on Wednesday March 06, 2019 @07:12PM (#19324360)
No. My home loan is well over $2m. If we were married we could only deduct $1m (half the interest). As 2 single people we can deduct the interest up to $2m. It’s a wrinkle in the tax code.
Re:Some young people are buying houses with friends by ThrustVectoring on Wednesday March 06, 2019 @04:33PM (#19323055)
The tradeoff there is that you can no longer depreciate the portion of the house that person lives in. Not sure which is bigger, but being able to effectively push current income into the unrealized capital gains on your home is fairly attractive.

On the other hand, you need to be charging market rents with the intent to try to make a profit in order to do this on your taxes, and that means keeping track of rent payments and reporting them. And any profit here could mean that what would otherwise be an untaxed sharing of expenses is now a taxed profit-seeking transaction.

Re:Some young people are buying houses with friends by fwip on Wednesday March 06, 2019 @08:26PM (#19324809)
If you're buying a $2,000,000 home, you're probably not splitting it with friends to save money.