Any plans President-elect Donald Trump may have for tax reform don't include cutting the mortgage interest deduction, according to a member of
"I can tell you right now, there are no proposals from the administration to change anything on mortgage, specifically anything to do with the tax deduction for mortgage interest or anything else," Steve Calk, chairman and chief executive officer of the $365 million-asset Federal Savings Bank in Chicago, said Thursday. "There's nothing in the plan that currently would bring that under attack."
The mortgage interest deduction, one of the largest tax breaks taken by individuals, has long been considered politically untouchable. But proposals to scale it back surface every now and then, and Trump's surprise victory has shaken assumptions about what is possible.
The recently re-elected House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., backed reform of the interest deduction in 2014. But he was one of
Before the election, Mortgage Bankers Association President David Stevens had suggested that his trade group might
The morning after the election, Stevens, a former Federal Housing Administration commissioner in the Obama administration, said defending the mortgage interest deduction would be a priority for his and other industry groups.
"When it comes down to MID, it'll be something that we, the Realtors, and the builders will unanimously focus on," he said. "If you're going to mess with that, you're going to mess with middle-class Americans' ability to tap into the American dream."
Calk said Thursday that he wasn't aware of any outreach by the MBA or Stevens to the economic advisory council on the issue. "He certainly hasn't discussed it with us," said Calk.
A.W. Pickel III, president of AmCap Mortgage Ltd.'s Midwest division, said he would strongly oppose cutting the mortgage interest deduction unless it were part of broader tax reductions large enough to offset the impact on home affordability.
Otherwise "I do think it would have a deleterious effect on the mortgage industry," he said, though he, too, acknowledged the deduction does less for lower-income borrowers than the middle class.
Ryan and Trump have had their differences, and although the speaker has attempted to mend fences in the wake of the election, they still aren't expected to see eye to eye.
"There's discord between Trump and the Republican establishment," said Mike Cremata, senior counsel and director of compliance at industry vendor ClosingCorp.
