| The National Association of Realtors (NAR) came out strongly against the House of Representatives’ proposal to overhaul the tax code yesterday.
“This legislation closely tracks with the House Republican Blueprint for tax reform, which threatens home values and takes money straight from the pockets of homeowners,” NAR President William E. Brown said in a statement. “Realtors believe in the promise of lower tax rates, but this bill is nowhere near as good a deal as the one middle-class homeowners get under current law. Tax hikes and falling home prices are a one-two punch that homeowners simply can’t afford.”
Earlier this year, NAR released a full analysis of the House Republican blueprint for reform, finding that it would cause a 10 percent drop in home values and raise taxes on middle-class homeowners by an average of $815.
Like the blueprint, the legislation released today doubles the standard deduction, while repealing all itemized deductions, except for mortgage interest and charitable contributions, nullifying the homeownership incentive for all but the top 5 percent of tax filers.
“The nation’s 1.3 million Realtors cannot support a bill that takes homeownership off the table for millions of middle-class families,” Brown said in a statement.
The National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) and National Apartment Association (NAA), on the other hand, yesterday took a strong position in support of reform.
“NMHC/NAA applaud the House Ways and Means Committee release of tax reform legislation. While we are continuing to review the legislative language, the tax reform package as currently written looks to encourage economic growth and job creation while protecting the multifamily industry’s ability to serve the 39 million Americans who call apartments home and the 12.3 million jobs supported by the multifamily sector and its residents,” the associations said in a joint statement. “Critically, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would preserve interest deductibility, like-kind exchanges and other provisions important to the apartment industry.”
The associations urged Congress to ensure that the final bill does not contain depreciation rules that harm real estate, protects flow-through entities, retains the deduction for business interest, maintains like-kind exchanges, preserves capital gains treatment of carried interest and protects the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit.
