Distorted Back to Reality

Part 16 of... "6 Tax Breaks Landlords Get that Hurt the Economy and You"

Jun 27, 2021

Perhaps we could give landlords who are financially dependent on landlord tax breaks a huge, new – but very temporary – tax break to help them during the transition.

After all, most landlords are just following the rules of the game. Nevertheless, some landlords won’t be able to make money on all their houses in a freer market without government tax subsidies.

For those landlords who decide they don’t want – under the new rules – to own their single-family and condo rentals anymore, perhaps we could temporarily exempt the first $100,000 of profit they make – per house – from taxation when they sell houses to non-landlords.

But landlords already get so many tax breaks that $100,000 of tax-free profit per house might not be enough. Maybe we would need to temporarily exempt the first $250,000 of landlord profit per house after all the old tax breaks for landlords are permanently deleted.

Most of those tax-free landlord profits would immediately be reinvested right back into the economy – hopefully, into the productive, job-creating economy. Having that money moved into more productive investments would give the economy and the stock market a boost.

I’d prefer to find a solution that reduces the transition costs for landlords who are dependent on government subsidies. If some landlords do better financially with the temporary tax break than under the old rules, that’s fine.

In the end, the goal is to stop paying Wall Street and Main Street to buy houses on Oak Street, and to stop unintentionally destabilizing house prices, the economy and American families.