Common tax breaks for families, individuals

Monday, April 18, 2011

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. tax laws are filled with a total of $1.1 trillion in deductions, credits and exemptions, an average of about $8,000 per taxpayer, according an analysis of tax data from 2009. Last year’s federal deficit was $1.3 trillion.

Among the biggest tax breaks:

—34.6 million taxpayers reduced their federal income taxes by a total of nearly $77 billion by deducting the interest they paid on their home mortgages.

—36 million families saved more than $54 billion from the $1,000 per-child tax credit.

—40.7 million taxpayers cut their federal income taxes by $40 billion by deducting state and local income, sales and personal property taxes.

—33.5 million households cut their taxes by $21 billion by deducting state and local real estate taxes.

—36 million families cut their taxes by nearly $35 billion by deducting charitable donations.

—28 million taxpayers saved a total of $24 billion because their income from Social Security and railroad pensions was untaxed.

—25.7 million low-income families collected a total of $55 billion from the earned income tax credit.

———

Source: Joint Committee on Taxation

More like this story

Use the comment form below to begin a discussion about this content.

Please review our Policies and Procedures before registering or commenting

Or login with:

OpenID

News Tribune

Breaking News