Archive for the ‘Obama’ Category

The Truth About Obamacare’s Real Estate Sales Tax (It Doesn’t Exist)

Tuesday, July 3rd, 2012

Income TaxIt didn’t take long for old rumors to resurface about President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

When “Obamacare” was first passed the blogosphere was up-in-arms that the AHA included an additional 3.8% tax on any real estate sale, and claimed, “that’s $3,800 on a $100,000 home.”

There were email chains passed along that said that anyone who sold a home would be subject to this tax.

Which is absolutely true, except for the fact that it is complete fiction.

The rumors have long since been debunked, yet after the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Health Care Act earlier this week, I’ve heard some conservatives once again pushing this narrative.

But just like Bloody Mary or death panels, it’s just another urban legend that just won’t go away.

So kids once more with feeling, “There is no real estate sales tax in Obamacare.”

Now there is an additional capital gains tax included in the Affordable Care Act, and yes it will affect a narrow field of real estate transactions.

But here is what you need to know; the majority of taxpayers will not have to pay it.

So here is the truth, plain and simple.

There is a new tax on investment income which will cover the income from interest, dividends, rents, as well as capital gains. It’s not a transfer tax on real estate sales.

While the sale of a home can be subject to this tax, it is only if a number of criteria are met.

If you are a married couple making less than $250,000 or an individual making less than $200,000, then you cannot be taxed.
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Fraud Probe Has Real Teeth, Banks Are Running Scared

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

Like the characters in "The Blair Witch Project", the banks are running scared!

Well what a wild week it has been. When we came to work on Monday we feared President Obama would put the housing crisis to bed without ever holding the banks’ feet to the fire.

The settlement with the banks, which we have blogged about ad nauseam this week, seemed as sure as a chip-shot field goal.

But thanks to President Obama’s suddenly get-tough approach, as evidenced by his State of the Union speech, we’ve seen the banks’ kick go wide-right and now all bets are off.

Can There Be Real Change In Mortgage Industry?

Now we are not completely sold that things will play out exactly as homeowners would like, this is of course the federal government we’re talking about, but for the first time we have a true sense of optimism. The President may finally be seeing things our way, and we want to throw our full support behind him.

There is no doubt cages have been rattled in the mortgage industry, and nerves have been frayed. If Obama’s plan to re-write the foreclosure rules didn’t have some kind of teeth, then we doubt we’d be seeing the type of reverberation thorough the media and the top echelons of government that we’ve detected in the last few days.

Banks Are Fearful of Settlement Collapse


The settlement could be falling apart at the seems, at least JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon thinks so. He told CNBC this morning that Obama’s announcement to investigate the packaging and servicing of mortgage loans could stop the settlement cold.
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Obama and the State of the Union — a Political Jekyll and Hyde?

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

Leading up to the State of the Union, we heard a lot of chatter that a proposed $25 billion settlement with the banks would be a selling point in President Obama’s speech.And maybe it would have been, had President Obama delivered the State of the Union. But clearly the person we saw last night addressing Congress was candidate Obama, who is a very different individual.

The State of the Union, at times, felt more like a stump speech that an address from a sitting president. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Obama finally sounded like someone willing to play tough with the banks with his No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts’ line. Only time will tell if this is a true change in the President’s perspective, or if he’ll go right back to being the same man who handed out bailouts like candy.

We were glad to see Obama acknowledge that Wall Street was playing by its own rules, but he had a hand in allowing them to do so, so we hope he understands if we’re still a bit skeptical.

Right before the State of the Union, the Huffington Post broke the news that New York Attorney General Eric Scheniderman has been named to lead a new Unit on Mortgage Origination and Securitization Abuses, which could be a real game-changer. Like the editorial team at Oppenheim Law, Schneiderman has been a vocal critic of the aforementioned settlement.

He has been very tough on the White House’s foreclosure policies before, so maybe we’ll finally see the accountability and thorough investigation that we’ve been demanding.
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Will Obama Target Housing Crisis During State Of The Union?

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

President Barack Obama delivers remarks on the economy at Shaker Heights High School,Shaker Heights, Ohio, Jan. 4, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

We really haven’t seen President Obama insert himself directly into the housing crisis, but there are rumblings that he may do just that during Tuesday’s State of The Union address.

The fact is that is what homeowners have been clamoring for. A new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll found 58% of Americans want the government to do more to help people keep homes.

According to HousingWire, Ohio senator Sherrod Brown told reporters today that there was evidence that Obama would address the robo-signing case which involves several major banks. A North Carolina congressman even said there were rumours that Obama would announce a settlement, something HUD secretary Shaun Donovan suggested last week was ‘very close’, as we mentioned in our Week In Review on Friday.

For the record, Obama’s press secretary refused to confirm any details, saying only that the President was “focused on the issue of housing”.

Between Dononvan’s comments and the recent white paper sent out by the Federal Reserve, it seems that more and more top government officials are finally realizing how important the housing market is to our economic recovery, not to mention their own political survival.

This is not news to us here at the South Florida Law Blog.

In the Huffington Post last September, Roy Oppenheim called housing the “thousand pound gorilla in the room” in the 2012 election, as many of the states with the highest underwater mortgages, such asFlorida, are also key electoral swing states. The pressure on Obama to be more aggressive on the banks is growing in Washington, and it’s about time.
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