Research report Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the Home Mortgage Interest Deduction
Janet Holtzblatt, Robert McClelland, Gabriella Garriga
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A legacy of racial discrimination—in the housing market and mortgage lending industry, among other sectors—has led to lower rates of homeownership among Black and Hispanic families than among White families. One consequence of the lower homeownership rates is that Black and Hispanic families do not benefit as much from the home mortgage interest deduction as White families. Using the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center’s microsimulation model, we find that Black and Hispanic families received just 54 percent and 38 percent, respectively, of the average benefit for all families in 2019. In contrast, White families got 21 percent more than the average. Expiration of the individual provisions in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) will more than double the share of families who claim the deduction in each group, in large part due to the reduction in the standard deduction amounts. Although the average benefit will rise for all groups, the relative disparities will not change substantially. A surprising result is that in the top income group, Black taxpayers receive a disproportionately larger benefit relative to White taxpayers under TCJA, but that relationship will be reversed after the expiration of the individual income tax provisions.

Primary topic Individual Taxes
Research Area Homeownership