Posted on: 09th Dec, 2009 05:17 pm
Can you please advise me why everyone says you should not pay off your mortgage? We are advised that we get tax benefits, but as we pay about 10,000 a year in interest is the tax benefits really enough to cover that? I haven't seen anything so far?
Those people are incorrect. You are better off paying NO interest then getting the tax benefit on the interest that you do pay. No debt is better.
if there is any benefit, it's that when you own a home and have interest write-offs, you can also then write off substantial other things, such as charitable contributions, real estate and personal property taxes, various "miscellaneous" deductions as defined by the irs, a percentage of medical expenses, etc. usually the preponderance of all these items will be more beneficial to a tax filer than the standard deductions allowed by the irs.
and that's not to say that i don't agree with eric, of course.