Tax Reform

On December 22, 2017, President Trump signed the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act".

All individual provisions of the measure are generally effective starting with the 2018 tax filing year and expire on December 31, 2025 unless otherwise noted. To read NAR’s analysis of the bill’s provisions impacting real estate, please go to "The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act - What it Means for Homeowners and Real Estate Professionals." 

NAR has provided guidance to members and consumers, and continues to work with Congress and the Administration to address additional concerns through future legislation and rulemaking. REALTORS® will need to continue to be engaged in the process.

NAR strived throughout the tax reform process to preserve the tax benefits of homeownership and real estate investment, as well to ensure as many real estate professionals as possible would benefit from proposed tax cuts. Many of the changes reflected in the final bill were the result of the engagement of NAR and its members over several years.

The 2020 election resulted in Democratic majorities in both the United States Senate and the House of Representatives, as well as a Democrat in the White House.  Since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act had zero support from Democrats when it was passed in late 2017, it is only natural that the current leadership in Congress and the President are calling for some changes to reverse the tax cuts from that legislation for higher-income individuals and corporations. So far, however, no legislation has been enacted that would raise the tax rates of individuals or corporations or otherwise reverse the changes enacted in the 2017 tax reform act in major ways. We expect more debate and possibly more legislative action on these issues through the rest of 2022.

Also, as noted above, many of the changes enacted in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act are set to expire at the end of 2025. We expect that as we get closer to the expiration date, there will be increased debate about tax reform in general and whether the provisions of the 2017 Act should be extended or not.