Latest news with #2017
Yahoo
14 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Mortgage interest tax deduction: How it works and when it makes sense
When you file your income tax returns each year, the mortgage interest deduction (MID) can be one of the most valuable benefits of homeownership. Or it can be worthless. That contradiction exists because the value of the MID depends on whether your itemized deductions exceed the standard deduction, and that depends on how much mortgage interest you paid during the year, your other deductions, and your standard deduction for your filing status and the tax year. Sounds complicated? Well, it is. This embedded content is not available in your region. Dig deeper: What is mortgage interest? In this article: Is mortgage interest tax deductible? How to claim the home mortgage interest deduction Should you buy a home to get the mortgage interest deduction? FAQs Mortgage interest is generally tax deductible. However, you should be aware of some important rules, limits, and exclusions before you claim this deduction on your tax returns. The federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) limited the MID to interest paid for the first $750,000 of mortgage debt for loans originated after Dec. 15, 2017. Previously, the limit was $1 million of mortgage debt. For married couples filing separately, those limits are cut in half. The TCJA continued to allow mortgage interest for both a primary residence and a second home to be deducted, but the new law excluded interest paid for home equity loans or home equity lines of credit (HELOCs) unless the funds were used to build, buy, or make significant improvements to the home that secures the loan. Previously, interest paid for up to $100,000 of home equity debt could be deducted regardless of how the funds were used. The previous rules are still important because the TCJA is scheduled to sunset at the end of 2025. After the 2025 tax year, the previous rules will again be in effect unless Congress extends the TCJA MID provisions or makes other changes to the MID. To claim the MID, you'll have to itemize your deductions on your tax returns. Itemizing can be complicated and generally makes sense only if your deductions exceed your standard deduction, which is available if you choose not to itemize. For the tax year 2024 — which you will file in 2025 — the standard deduction for most taxpayers is $14,600 for individuals, $29,200 for joint tax filers, and $21,900 for heads of household. Those amounts are "indexed" (i.e., adjusted) for inflation, so they can and typically do change from year to year. Before the TCJA changed the rules at the end of 2017, the standard deduction for most taxpayers was $6,500 for individuals, $13,000 for joint filers, and $9,550 for heads of household. The higher amounts will be in effect until the TCJA through the 2025 tax year unless Congress extends the standard deduction provisions of the law or makes other changes to the standard deduction. Since the standard deduction is indexed for inflation, it's impossible to predict in advance what the amounts will be for 2026 or subsequent years. If you itemize your deductions, you may be able to deduct some or all of your property tax as well as your mortgage interest on your tax returns. The property tax deduction could help you boost your itemized deductions to exceed your standard deduction and make itemizing worth the effort. There's also another reason the value of your MID may vary from year to year: With a typical fixed-rate mortgage, the interest portion of your monthly mortgage payment — the part that may be tax-deductible — gets smaller as a portion of your payment over time. A smaller deduction may diminish your tax savings. The MID is part of the federal tax code. State tax codes typically also allow this deduction. Special rules may apply if you rent out your home for part of the year or use part of your home as a home office for business purposes. As a general rule, the more income you earn and the bigger your mortgage is, the more valuable the MID may be for you if you itemize your deductions and your itemized deductions exceed the standard deduction for your filing status for a given tax year. That said, the MID shouldn't be a reason to get a bigger mortgage — or any mortgage — if you can't afford the monthly payment or you're not financially comfortable with the payment, the other costs of owning a home, and all your other expenses. If you are going to buy a home and itemizing your deductions makes sense for you, the MID could be a nice tax-saving opportunity to take advantage of. Learn more: 8 tax deductions for homeowners This embedded content is not available in your region. It depends on how much housing debt you have. For most borrowers, you can deduct interest payments on up to $750,000 of home loan debt in 2024 — including your primary mortgage and any second mortgages, such as home equity loans and HELOCs. If you're married filing separately, your mortgage interest is tax deductible on up to $375,000 of mortgage loan debt. No, you are not limited to deducting $10,000 of mortgage interest. As long as you itemize your tax deductions, you can deduct interest paid on up to $750,000 of mortgage debt (or $375,000 if you're married filing separately). You can still deduct mortgage interest if you opt to itemize your tax deductions rather than take the standardized deduction. Interest paid on home equity loans and HELOCs are no longer deductible unless you use these second mortgages to buy or build a house, or to make significant home improvements. This rule is in effect through the end of 2025.
WIRED
a day ago
- WIRED
The Concha Sol Hearing Aids Deliver Solid Sound but Feel Dated
Concha Labs has been making over-the-counter hearing aids since 2017, marketing just one product—the Concha Sol. The hearing aids have a familiar design, a classic behind-the-ear configuration with a simple rocker control on the back of each. Concha particularly touts its customizability: The Sol come in your choice of four colors, and can be configured with lead wires in four different sizes, though it should be noted that many competing hearing aids have lead wires that can be adjusted on the fly and replaced with larger or smaller ones. At the time of your order, Concha works to convert the hearing aids to the size of your ears, skin tone, and the color of your hair (if you're lucky enough to have any left), maximizing the likelihood that they'll blend in and fit properly. I received the grey model with the longest available leads and measured the weight of these devices at 2.03 grams, which is very lightweight for behind-the-ear hearing aids. Replaceable Batteries The primary reason behind such a light weight is the Sol's biggest downside: replaceable batteries. That's a bit of a nonstarter in today's hearing aid world, and it's surprising that Concha Labs is still clinging to a fading power model that requires the user to fumble with sliding in a new pair of tiny batteries every 5 to 7 days. While replaceable batteries offer a far longer lifespan than even the best rechargeable cells (as well as the aforementioned lighter weight), they are still a hassle that few enjoy. (The last research I've seen, from 2021, showed that 70 percent of hearing aid users prefer rechargeable hearing systems.) Assuming you're OK with a replaceable battery system, the Concha Sol have a lot going for them. It starts with tuning. Concha does not use preset sound profiles like most OTC aids. Preset profiles are pretuned frequency waveforms based on thousands of historical hearing tests people have taken over the years. These audiograms are averaged, and a handful of representative audiograms are loaded onto the hardware. When you take an in-app hearing test, the app figures out which of these audiograms is closest to yours and loads the appropriate corrections into the hearing aid hardware. It's not perfect, but for most users it's good enough. Concha has a built-in hearing test in its app, but it's wholly unlike the typical hearing test, where you listen for pings at different frequencies and volumes until a full picture of your hearing loss develops. After some initial level-setting, Concha's system, called Soundscope, asks you to listen (with each ear) to paired, repeated snippets of speech, then identify whether sample A or sample B sounds best. It's like an eye exam, only for your ears.
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Lovestuck review – superb dating disaster musical inspired by unfortunate toilet accident
As bad dating stories go, this one from 2017 is a classic. During a Tinder date, a woman found herself in a pretty awkward situation: her poo wouldn't flush, and in an attempt to discreetly dispose of it, she ended up wedged between two windows. The story was turned into a viral meme, and even made the headlines. Now, a musical by two of the creators of the hit podcast My Dad Wrote a Porno (Jamie Morton and James Cooper) has been spawned from the incident, too. The central premise remains, but with a few creative tweaks. Lucy and Peter have been raised on Disney movies but are chronically unlucky in love. Misguided help arrives in the form of Lucy's cutting anti-guardian-angel, Miseraie, and Peter's insufferable finance bro flatmate, David. After matching on a dating app, they meet at a Mexican restaurant and do their best to keep up appearances. But, would you believe it – it turns out they might just be each other's perfect match after all. With Alison Steadman's voice guiding us through the show as a romcom style narrator, everything falls, predictably, into place. But with a powerhouse score by Bryn Christopher and Martin Batchelar, the stage erupts into a celebration of modern love at its most mortifying. In Picture Perfect, Lucy sings of the flawless lives she sees online. In Shit!, her embarrassment spills out of her at a panicked rate. Every number is a hit. After the original actor playing Lucy suffered an injury in rehearsals last week, Ambra Caserotti has stepped in last minute. Though you'd never guess it: her voice melts like butter, and she brings a dry sense of humour to the role. Coupled with Shane O'Riordan as Peter, the pair make an endearing and suitable awkwardly match. By the end, it turns out it's better to be yourself, even if you happen to be the internet sensation known as 'poo girl'. It's hardly revolutionary stuff. But with stylistic traces of Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss's Why Am I So Single?, the musical glistens with wit, intelligence and a high gag rate. There's a hell of a lot of poo chat, but if you can get onboard the toilet train, you're sure to leave laughing. At Stratford East, London, until 12 July
New York Times
14-06-2025
- General
- New York Times
I'm No Godlike Father After All
When my son was born, I got plenty of advice about his eating and sleeping, too much about which gear to buy and hardly any at all about my biggest question: what it actually meant to be a dad. It was the summer of 2017, a time of reckoning for fathers. Bill Cosby, known as America's dad, had been charged with sexual assault, and his trial played on every TV in the maternity ward. The nation had just elected as president Donald Trump, who boasted of never having changed a diaper. As #MeToo swept the country, masculinity entered a time of crisis on the left. Meanwhile, the right was embracing traditional visions of gender roles. I wanted to find a different model of paternal care, but this is not the sort of issue most parenting books address, and my own father, who had recently had a stroke, wasn't available to help guide me in the way he always had. All my life he had been a safe and solid presence, but now he was newly vulnerable and remote. I didn't want to fashion myself as infallible, as so many fathers do, so I did virtually the only thing I felt qualified to do as a historian: Whenever I could find a few free hours, I started researching the history of fatherhood, particularly in the West, in search of some lost ideal that I could emulate. Over more than six years of study, a few themes kept coming up. From the very beginning of the written historical record roughly 5,000 years ago, fatherhood has been marked by what looks to a modern reader to be masculine insecurity. Many of the oldest surviving legal and religious texts work anxiously to establish a godlike mandate: I know what's best, and if you do as I say, you will be completely protected and provided for. Ancient Sumerian inscriptions tell the story of a father, Shuruppak, eager to counsel his son Ziusudra. Shuruppak gives his son all sorts of advice, but his real concern is his own tenuous authority. 'My son,' Shuruppak pleads again and again, 'let me give you instructions: You should pay attention! The instructions of an old man are precious: You should comply with them!' In the centuries that followed, fathers would continue trying to reinforce their paternalistic authority, especially in times of crisis and social change. At a precarious moment in ancient Athens, when it seemed as if the great city might not survive, Aristotle formulated policies to increase a man's power within and beyond his household. The first Roman emperor sought to stabilize his empire after years of civil war by bolstering the patriarchal family and 'traditional' morality. Five hundred years ago, Henry VIII's anxieties about succession drove him to claw back the power to pass property and status to favored heirs. Again and again, the message has been the same: Fathers know best. Except in hindsight — whenever patriarchy ushered in war and destruction — it seemed clear that they did not. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
12-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Supreme Court Revives Suit From Victims of Botched F.B.I. Raid
The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously revived a suit from a couple whose home was mistakenly raided by the F.B.I., giving them a fresh opportunity to try to persuade lower courts that they should be able to sue the federal government for the harm they suffered. The case, Martin v. United States, No. 24-362, arose from a raid very early on a fall morning in 2017, when F.B.I. agents used a battering ram to knock down the front door of the home of the couple, Hilliard Toi Cliatt and Curtrina Martin. Guns drawn, the agents set off a flash-bang grenade and charged inside. The couple barricaded themselves in a closet. The agents dragged Mr. Cliatt out at gunpoint and handcuffed him. They told Ms. Martin to keep her hands up as she pleaded to see her 7-year-old son, who had been asleep in another room. As they questioned Mr. Cliatt, he gave his address. It was different from the one the agents had a warrant to enter. One of the agents, Lawrence Guerra, had earlier identified the correct house, which he said looked similar and was nearby, on a different street. But on the morning of the raid, he said he went to the wrong house because he had been misdirected by his GPS device. The couple sued for false arrest, false imprisonment, assault, battery and other claims but lost in the lower courts on a variety of grounds, notably that government officials' actions are protected from lawsuits when they perform a duty that involves discretion. The case turned on the Federal Tort Claims Act, which sometimes allows suits against the government notwithstanding the doctrine of sovereign immunity. A 1974 amendment to the law made it easier to sue over wrong-house raids after notorious ones in Collinsville, Ill. But the law is subject to a tangled series of exceptions and provisos.
