Which means, it's
> likely they are taking advantage of the mortgage deduction.
>
> That is: in order to have $13k of "exemptions plus deductions" you must
> have at least 5 exemptions if you are to not have enough to break
> though the standrad deduction.
I don't see why, since you can take _both_ the standard deduction and the personal exemptions. It is just as likely that they are households taking the standard plus and average a couple of personal exemptions.
In fact, the $13K figure pretty much proves my point, doesn't it? Unless the average filer on the $30k-40K claims less than two personal deductions (unlikely, given that the minimum per return is one, and the average household has more than 3 people in it), that average filer does not benefit at all from the mortgage deduction. Am I missing something?
-- Enrique Diaz-Alvarez Office # (607) 255 5034 Electrical Engineering Home # (607) 272 4808 112 Phillips Hall Fax # (607) 255 4565 Cornell University mailto:enrique at ee.cornell.edu Ithaca, NY 14853 http://peta.ee.cornell.edu/~enrique