Origination fee write off

[ambellamy]

I refinanced my old FHA mortgage to a 20 year regular mortgage.

On my HUD statement, my origination fee is $1,085.07 but I got a "credit" and only paid $661.25 because I made an additional mortgage payment prior to my refinance that they weren't expecting.

So do I amortize the $661.25 over the 20 year loan, or the $1,085.07 over the loan? (I can't write it off in one swoop because we didn't pull money out for improvements and we used the new loan just to pay off our old loan.)


Is there anything from the first old FHA loan i should write off this year?

[mwcpa]

"Points" on a refinance are amortized over the life of the loan and treated as additional mortgage interest expense.  The bank's 1098 should disclose the amount to you.

On the first loan, assuming it was the first mortgage (never refinanced) you would have deducted "points" at the time the loan was taken, these would not be amortized over time, there is no special tax deduction related to paying off the first mortgage (you do get to claim a break for the actual interest paid, subject to various limits in the law).

[ambellamy]

It wasn't listed on my banks 1098 (no points) but turbo tax said to check you HUD statement because if they list origination fees, you can write those off?

[mwcpa]

without seeing the HUD-1 it is hard to say, but, if there are points paid then the points are an allowable expense....

here are the rules (IRS point of view)... www.irs.gov/publications/p936/ar02.html#en_US_2013_publink1000229936

[ambellamy]

Ya i read the link already and that's what made me confused....