We have a winner! See the correct answer in the comments.
Our next tax trivia question for the giveaway is:
According to the IRS, what percentage of those taxpayers who itemized tax deductions for tax year 2008 claimed the home mortgage interest deduction?
I’m looking for answer +/- a percentage point. The first correct answer wins free free CompleteTax online tax prep software.
Remember that you have to comment on the actual post, not on email, Twitter or Facebook, in order to win (though feel free to comment that way for fun). You can read the rules for the giveaway and more about the prizes here.
What’s your guess?
80.3%
99%
77%
79%
95%
65%
38,684,001 total 2008 returns claiming a home mortgage interest deduction out of 48,167,223 total 2008 returns itemizing deductions. 80.31%
35.58% of 2008 taxable income on returns with itemized deductions was claimed as a home mortgage interest deduction. Not that that was the question. 🙂
42%
72%
I read that it’s 52%
…but that only 9% get any real benefit from it…?
Darn the IRS. There are two sets of what appears to be conflicting data on their site.
According to the first set of data (I had a colleague double check to make sure it just wasn’t me), Tax Diva wins! On their “big picture” stats sheet for 2008, there were 49,074,525 returns filed in 2008 which itemized and of those, 38,505,061 claimed the home mortgage interest deduction. That works out to 78% – making Tax Diva the first guess within a percentage point.
However, at Table 1.2, on the same stats page, you get the data as articulated by Joe which would make Jed the winner. That data, though, has the disclaimer at the top, “All figures are estimates based on samples”, which leads me to believe that the more comprehensive set of data is the accurate answer.
All of that said, in the name of fairness, I will allow both answers making Tax Diva and Jed our winners.
68%