I’ve often questioned the wisdom of paying a dollar in interest in order to save 30-40 cents in taxes.
Am I missing something?
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No, you’re not. You’ve identified something that should be obvious, yet I don’t know how many times I’ve had new clients come to see me, with huge mortgages, and they tell me that their prior CPA told them to buy the most expensive house they could and borrow as much as possible to save taxes. Friggen morons.
It’s simple. If the question is to put another $100K down, or borrow another $100K, if the taxable return on investing the $ is the same as the interest rate on the loan, taxes will be almost exactly the same. (there are some exceptions to this, but those exceptions would certainly not apply in a case where the purchase is a $1M home.) Nobody EVER needs a tax deduction in the form of home mortgage interest. Mortgage interest costs REAL money. It NEVER pays to buy a dollar for dollar deduction. If it did, no one would ever complain about my fees, since they’d be essentially free after taxes.
If someone is fortunate enough to have the flexibility like the OP does, it’s a pure investment decision. Taxes are a variable like they are for all investments. They are usually not the driver. Net return is.
