Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Another Reason to Pay off Your House Early

In previous posts, I had opined about the value of paying your house off early. The common rebuttal is that your mortgage interest is tax deductable and you're wasting money by paying it off early, forgoing the tax advantages. Allow me to suggest that if you want tax deductions, then charitable giving is a far better way to get them. For one thing, all of your giving is deductable, not just a portion of it. Near the end of your home loan, very little of your payment is interest, so you're not getting much of a tax deduction.

Perhaps the most important question is who do you want to get your money: a banker or someone like Catholic Charities?
No moar monies for you, Mr. Fatcat!


Help feed the hungry!

2 comments:

Kelly the little black dog said...

That is the best argument yet. If you are at the end of your mortgage you really aren't getting a substantial tax break.

Another issue, is that this scenario has you investing that money elsewhere at a higher rate of return. With the market like it is now, that isn't too likely.

K T Cat said...

Kelly, Dave Ramsey makes a strong case for paying off your house early. In our case, I'd really like to set up one or more scholarships to the Catholic grade school where my daughter goes. One of her best friends had to drop out and go to public school recently because they couldn't afford it any more. If our house was paid for, this would be no problem at all for us.