4 Presidential Candidates: Their Income Tax Housing Subsidies VS. HUD Average Expenditure Per Voucher Household.

To celebrate tax day I thought it might be interesting to see how the current presidential candidates benefit from housing tax deductions for mortgage interest and real estate taxes compared to what HUD spent on average for voucher holders in their states. 

The Excel workbook HERE and embedded below contains a graph on page one with an abbreviated table and a complete set of data on page 2. (You may have to scroll or download the Excel file to see the second page).

I pulled the MID and real estate tax figures for 2014 from the candidate's posted tax returns. I had to estimate those figures as a percentage of the total itemized deductions for both Cruz and Kasich as they have NOT included their itemized deduction worksheets in their posted returns. I used 67% the same percentage as Sanders. And of course, Trump data is NOT included as his returns are not posted on line.

I pulled the HUD average voucher holder for each candidate's state from the HUD Picture of Subsidized Households.

Some observations

• The lowest income of the candidates was $205K (Sanders) but ALL received substantial housing tax subsidies. (The average voucher income in these 4 states ranged from $11k-$16k).
• The range of monthly subsidies vs the federal income tax system varied from Sanders receiving  $424 per month to Clinton who received a housing subsidy of $4,351 per month.  
• The candidates housing tax subsidies were from 54% (Sanders) to 474% (Clinton) of the average HUD expenditure for voucher holders in their state. All candidates except Sanders got MORE in housing tax subsidies than the HUD subsidy received by the average voucher holder in their state.
• My computations only calculate federal tax subsidies for housing, candidates in states with income taxes also likely receive state income tax benefits for the MID and real estate taxes.  
• Some of the housing tax subsidies likely came from second homes.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.