With the caveat that any list of forthcoming changes is speculative, here are major items<br />that are under discussion in Washington and that may affect your tax returns:<br />The Trump plan and the House plan would both cut the top rate to 33 percent from 39.6 percent, raise the lowest rate to 12 percent from 10 percent,<br />and collapse the number of brackets — different tax rates at different income levels — to three from seven.<br />The Trump plan does not call for lowering the rates on long-term capital gains, which now top out at 20 percent for the<br />highest earners — single filers with adjusted gross incomes above $415,050, and couples with incomes above $466,950.<br />The Trump plan would cap itemized deductions at $200,000 a year for married couples filing jointly and $100,000 for single filers.<br />There has been talk in Congress for years about limiting or eliminating itemized deductions for mortgage interest (interest payments on up to $1 million in mortgage<br />debt are now deductible), usually in conjunction with raising the standard deduction, although these changes are not part of the current House plan.<br />The itemized-deductions cap proposed by Mr. Trump would effectively limit interest<br />and real estate tax deductions for the owners of expensive homes — a backdoor way of curtailing them.
