Photo by Scott Lipson.
December 18, 2017 Weather: Cloudy, with a high of 45 degrees.
Notices:
Lonely clowns on the moon and more local events are on our calendar.
On Monday, a community board committee will meet to discuss upcoming changes to the Theodore Roosevelt Park lawns, and other parks issues.
News:
The Central Park Conservancy has a new leader. Elizabeth Smith is a former assistant parks commissioner and a finance executive. “‘The challenge is to envision a fresh Central Park Conservancy,’ she said. ‘There are new sources of wealth and new priorities for giving and new technology.’ She added that with the Institute for Urban Parks, the conservancy’s educational arm, ‘there’s a focus on helping other parks and sharing our expertise.'”
Famous opera singers sometimes let their hair down and rock out at local bars. “Their karaoke night, on the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, brought several operas’ worth of singing talent to Whispers, an Upper West Side bar about a mile and a half north of the Met. It offered a rare chance to see top-flight professionals display their talents on a field that usually belongs to amateurs.
Analysts worry that the tax bill will cause NYC home prices to fall. “In New York City, for instance, Manhattan would see a 9.5 percent drop in home values.”
Take a trip on some of the city’s remaining manual elevators, many of which are on the Upper West Side. “On West 67th Street just off Central Park, the elevator man at the Hotel des Artistes building rests between trips in a carved wooden throne beneath a mural of ships in the harbor.”
A man named Chris Campbell ran 100 miles around and around and around Central Park in 37 hours. “Of course, there were breaks involved. A few short naps in his vehicle were a must and time was taken to change clothes and shoes and to eat. However, he never left the park until he had conquered what he set out to accomplish…And while he personally completed all 100 miles he pointed out that he did not do it alone. Throughout the weekend his wife, Kem, and friends took turns running along side him, giving him encouragement.”
Analysts worry that the tax bill will cause NYC home prices to fall. “In New York City, for instance, Manhattan would see a 9.5 percent drop in home values.”
So it sounds like a good time to buy!
No doubt real estate brokers are salivating about panicked Manhattanites desperate to sell before the Manhattan real estate market totally collapses.
A 9.5% drop in housing prices in Manhattan would bring prices back to merely sky high, from near-total absurdity.
I read the Slate story and it’s just about the dumbest thing ever. The $10K cap on property tax deduction only applies to what can really be called mansions. If anything, the bill would boost the value of my property, since I pay around $5500 a year in taxes. Given that Slate is a liberal rag, isn’t it just a tad ironic that they’re shedding tears for hedge fund managers? Of course, hedge funders were totally #withher, so maybe not.
No Scott, You are mistaken . Get your facts right before you comment. The $10,000 max applies to the sum of all State and local taxes, plus mortgage interest payments. Ordinary middle-class retired people who have been saving all their lives will be hit with a new federal tax bill that will increase their federal payments by thousands of dollars. Hedge fund managers will do just fine (actually most of these are Republicans).
(continued from above)
So in other words, two separate deductions.
Both are probably less likely to be used because the “standard deduction” has gone from 12K to 24K. look ta your old tax return and see if you itemized over 24K.
Jerry V:
I am pretty sure that the 10K applies to state and local taxes plus property taxes.
the mortgage interest deduction remained, only it was capped at mortages of 750K instead of a million. Not a big difference… a mortgagee with 1 million still gets to deduct the interest on the first 750K.
the cap is 10k TOTAL on all state and local tax deductions: property and state and city income tax.
a lot of middle class people in NYC itemize these.
Well the story doesn’t say that Bruce. In any case if the cap also applies to local income taxes that should mean bigger federal tax bills, something progressives should love.
Scott, i’m very impressed by your irrational (and inaccurate) anger at progressives. I’m sure Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have screwed you in so many ways.
One hundred milers are not all that rare. There used to be one every summer in Flushing Meadow Park that incorporated part of the Shea Stadium parking lot. Kudos to Chris Campbell for doing this on a hilly course with only part time pacing and accompaniment.
That’s very true.
If Chris Campbell’s ran started on November 18, he shared the park with the NYRR 60k race, which is nine short loops of the 4 miles from 72nd to 102nd. Lots of local ultrarunners run that event. I wonder if Chris knew how many 100 mile alums were out jogging with him in the park during his run. They would’ve given him plenty of high fives and support… but probably also talk him into the next race.
I wish that they would have eliminated the mortgage interest deduction completely. They even kept the deduction for second homes.
This tax advantage gets factored into the price of the home, driving up property values. That makes it more difficult for people to enter the housing market, because the down payment and mortgage are higher than they would otherwise be.
They also preserved the capital gains exclusion for home owners. That means that the first 250k for single or 500k for married home owners are exempt from the normal capital gains taxes. Further transfer of wealth to property owners in addition to the mortgage interest deduction. One could also argue that long-term inflationary policies created by the Federal Reserve also benefit home owners.
i too benefit from the mortgage interest deduction, although whether i will continue to do so with the new larger standard deduction remains to be seen.
however, i’m glad to see that people are recognizing that this is a housing subsidy — the largest housing subsidy in the US, by far… much more so than the sum total of all public housing.
the largest housing subsidies accrue disproportionately to some of the richest people.
In short…
Government largess accrues disproportionately to some of the richest people.
Could not agree with you more. I’m a homeowner, and the mortgage interest tax deduction, even though it benefits me, is something I feel extremely strongly should be completely eradicated. Renters everywhere subsidize *my* home ownership — how is that fair?