Vacation home Mortgage

Introducing the new taxation law: what it means for the individual

The customer alert describes the changes that individual persons can anticipate in the way their incomes are subject to taxation. Also, the classifications of assessable incomes for each tier of taxation have changed for 2018. Consequently, some individual payers will be in the next class earlier under the new Act.

This table shows the changes for individual filers: If you are going to submit your tax returns together, your tax payer will usually see an upwards movement in how much your assessable earnings can be before they move on to the next level. On the following table you can see the changes for marital tax payers who submit together: In order to compensate for the rise in the higher deductible amount, the individual exceptions have been removed.

Indeed, the individual liberation and the default relief were merged into the higher default relief. Mortgage interest deductions for tax payers who buy new houses will be reduced from interest on up to $1,000,000 in debts to $750,000 in debts. The discount does not cover tax payers who already own their houses whose mortgage existed before 15 December 2017.

Moreover, mortgage interest is now deductable only for the main domicile of the taxable person. Any interest on a loan taken out for the purchase of a holiday home is no longer subject to taxation unless you already own your holiday home. Similarly, interest on home equity facilities (HELOCs) is no longer subject to taxation and, unlike interest on grandfather holiday flats, the interest expense on a HELOC is deducted from both new and current facilities.

As well as limiting the mortgage interest deductions, there is now a cap on the deductions for state and municipal tax - only a cap of $10,000 ($5,000 if filed as a separate marriage) for all state and municipal personal tax together (i.e. wealth, sale and personal tax).

NB: A fundamental review of the above changes in taxation legislation suggests that an individual or spouse W-2 should take home more of their pay due to the reduction in taxation levels and the double dump. But since the payer is earning a higher wage, the higher condensed individual filing installments, coupled with the losses of SALT reductions for all, can lead to de minimis economies (or possibly higher taxes) for the payer in states with relatively high personal tax levels, especially if the payer has a home.

Under the new Act, taxpayers of continuous units (such as private firms, private companies with restricted liabilities and S-corporations) will be entitled to a qualifying 20% corporate deductible, with the result that taxpayers will only pay 80% of their transit revenues taxed if they are entitled to the full deductible. Thus, for example, the amount deducted is restricted to the lower of (i) 20% of qualifying operating revenue and (ii) the higher of the two:

These analyses are conducted on a company-specific foundation for each individual who owns more than one transit company, and the restriction under "(ii)" does not hold if the taxpayer's rateable earnings are less than $157,500 for individual tax payers or $315,000 for marital tax payers submitting together. Furthermore, for some tax payers, such as those who provide face-to-face service, the 20% discount is only available if the entrepreneur's rateable earnings are below certain threshold values ($157,500 for individual tax payers and $315,000 for spouses submitting a common tax return), otherwise the discount may expire.

The 20% reduction will be phased out if the tax payer fails to meet the revenue barrier by less than $50,000 for individual tax payers (i.e., more than $157,500 but less than $207,500 for individual taxpayers) or less than $100,000 for marital common tax payers (i.e., more than $315,000 but less than $415,000 for marital applicants submitting jointly).

From a historical point of view, maintenance was subject to tax for the beneficiary and taxable for the payer, unless the judgment of separation or the settlement provided otherwise. Under the new Act, this is reversed by abolishing the maintenance allowance and not obliging the beneficiary to add maintenance to his earnings.