“Californians that claimed the mortgage interest rate deduction saved an average of almost $20,000 from their tax bill in 2008, according to a Tax Foundation analysis of new data from the Internal Revenue Service. ”
I suspect that after the deduction is taken away, 20K is enough of an incentive to make changes along the lines of what I suggested, resulting in signficantly less than 20K being received by the Gov’t.
The law of unintended consequences applies here.
Remember the luxury tax from the early 1990’s ?
Enactment of the luxury taxes resulted in a net loss to the Government, primarily due to unemployment benefits paid to employees who were laid off from impacted industries. It was repealed after 2 years.