Tax Benefits for Birmingham Alabama Home Owners

With all of this news about the housing market being such a source of frustration and worry for so many buyers and sellers out there, I was reminded there are some things that we can be thankful for. These are the tax benefits of owning a home. 

I was catching up on some email today and I ran across this article, Tax Benefits of Owning A Home, from RealtorMagazine Online and Leonard Wiener of The Boston Globe. While I need to state first that I am not a tax expert nor am I trying to give tax advice, I do think this can give us some things to think about and talk to our own tax preparer/expert about.

The article gives some good tips. Among these tips are:

1. Mortgage interest and sometimes mortgage insurance premiums might be able to lower your tax liability.

2.  Home equity lines and the interest on them may be deductable no matter what you used it for.

3. Gains or profits made from the sale of a home may be tax exempt. The article said, "When a home owner sells a primary residence, any profit on the sale of the property is tax free up to $250,000 for single home owners and $500,000 for married home owners filing. Any profit above that is nearly always a long-term capital gain taxed at 15 percent - less if the seller's tax rate is less than 20 percent."

4. Finally home ownership may be able to itemize some deductions which can open up more deductions than standard deductions.

For more information from the article, check the link above. Also, before you decide to take any new deductions be sure to check with a tax professional.