Home Buyer Tax Credit - NOT
Is it my imagination or did I hear REPEATEDLY during the 2008 Presidential Campaign that housing was a key factor in our economic recovery and would be the element that lead us out of our current recession? And that our government (regardless of who won as both sides were saying this) would do what they needed to do to support the recovery of our real estate market. Did you hear that?
I was pleased and hopeful when our Senator Johnny Isakson from Georgia proposed the $15,000 tax credit for homebuyers and it actually made it out of the Senate. Between that and the "intent" to have the banks use the money GIVEN to them to help the suffering homeowners (foreclosures, short sales, etc), I could actually visualize relief for our industry.
They slashed it. Unbelievable. What are they thinking? My understanding is that they are taking it back to $7500 and once again it will only be for first time homebuyers and will only offset taxes due. Why? Oh, because this incentive has done us so much good in the past? HELLOOOO? NOT! How many first time homebuyers can even get credit right now to take advantage of this credit? Perhaps they should consider GIVING homebuyers incentives instead of GIVING to banks who played a very significant role in getting us into this disaster area to begin with.
Here is the argument we used in all our thousands of emails over the last couple of weeks. The tax credit really needed to be substantial – the $7,500 House version isn’t enough; it must be closer to the Senate’s $15,000 level to be effective.
It must be refundable to the tax payer – it should not be limited to an offset of taxes due. The full credit should be available to the taxpayer as a tax refund; this will make it meaningful to buyers at lower income levels with lower federal tax liability.
It should not be limited to first time buyers – first time buyers are a small percentage of the overall marketplace, if we are going to fix housing the entire housing market must be included.
Not sure why I'm going into this since it seems to be a done deal. I think I'll take another stab at sending out emails to our elected officials to reconsider. However, I'm going to try a different tactic then the last couple of weeks. Instead of sending my objections to the Senators of my state, I'm going to send it to the 3 Republicans and key Democrats supporting this back door attempt to . . . oh never mind. Grrrrrr.
Please consider doing the same.