Something doesn't seem right in your statement...
Lets say that you do pay off your mortgage. While you now have zero
interest to claim for a deduction... you still have state/local
income taxes, real estate & personal property taxes, and charitable
contributions to claim.
Lets say that you don't have any of these items (or they are small in
amount). If your gambling losses don't rise to the threshold of the
standard deduction... then you can still claim the standard deduction
and "make out" better.
The only way that I can think that you must itemize is if you are
filing MFS (Married Filing Separately) and your spouse itemizes. In
that case, it may be more beneficial to see how you and your spouse
would fair if you changed your filing status to MFJ
Jeff
Made a statement recently to the effect that it doesn't make sense
to pay
down your mortgage as you'll need to file a Schedule A to claim
gambling losses.
If the mortgage is paid off, then you'll need to give up standard
deduction to
claim losses as most people won't have enough deductions to
normally file
Schedule A without mortgage interest deducts.
That was my gut feel. Now I'm wondering if a case can be made for
paying off
···
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, TedChee@a... wrote:
the mortgage especially in these low-interest times?
Any tax experts want to noodle this one out?