Rep Pitches Plan To Jump Start Housing

WASHINGTON – Democratic Rep. Gary Ackerman said he will introduce legislation aimed at jumpstarting the housing market by providing two new enticements to homebuyers.

The housing plan would be paid for by temporarily reducing the tax rate that corporations pay when they bring overseas earnings back to the United States, the New York congressman said in a released statement.

The bill would provide 2 million homebuyers $20,000 each as a matching subsidy for a down payment. The subsidy would be structured as a loan, which would be forgiven over the course of five years, as long as the buyer continued to live in the house.

In addition, the legislation would offer a 10-year tax exemption on rental income to 1 million investors who purchase single-family homes as rental properties, reported American Banker, an affiliate of Credit Union Journal.

Ackerman estimated that the cost of the program would be covered by a one-year reduction in the corporate tax rate on repatriated earnings, from 35% to 10%. He says the tax holiday would spur U.S. companies to bring home billions of dollars that is currently parked overseas.

 

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