The 2017 tax act substantially scaled back the mortgage interest deduction.

Evidence

The real estate lobby also proved vulnerable recently when it lost a round with the temporary 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which is scheduled to expire on December 31, 2025. That legislation increased the standard deduction—which means fewer taxpayers will bother to itemize their mortgage interest deduction and just take the standard deduction instead. It also reduced the amount of mortgages you could have outstanding and still qualify for the mortgage interest deduction from 1 million to 750,000. And it limited the interest deduction for home equity loans, by requiring that the proceeds of the loan be used for home improvement. (The law used to allow you to take out a home equity loan for up to $100,000 and deduct the interest regardless of how you used the proceeds.) — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 1292

Categorization

• QUESTION: The December 31, 2025 expiration date makes this an unusually timely, checkable fact for current tax-policy discussion.