Tax breaks to encourage savings mostly help rich.

[Panich52]

Tax breaks to encourage savings mostly help rich. Bloomberg:

"The federal government spent $384 billion in 2013 on tax incentives that encourage savings, linked mainly to home ownership and retirement plans … The highest-earning fifth of U.S. taxpayers got about two-thirds of the tax refunds … while the bottom fifth received less than 1 percent, a report by the Urban Institute shows.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-18/the-rich-benefit-the-most-from-tax-breaks-designed-to-help-people-build-wealth

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[LiberalEsto]

1. To encourage saving, we need higher interest rates on savings accounts

Back in the 1960s, my parents' mortgage interest rate was probably around 5%, and at the same time banks paid 5% interest on savings accounts.

I remember putting my babysitting earnings into a savings account that paid 5%, even though it wasn't much money, unlike today's accounts requiring huge minimum deposits. That little savings account grew to nearly $400 and enabled me to buy a good used car when I went to college.

I checked Bankrate.com to see what interest would be charged on a 20-year mortgage for $15,000 in my parents' old zip code. I don't know how much they actually borrowed, only that it was a 20-year loan with a rate around 5%. Today's average rate would be around 4.08%

Yet interest rates on savings accounts and even money market accounts today are pitifully small. For example, I saw a Bank of America regular savings account rate online today that pays only 0.01% annual percentage yield. Why bother? Even a 6-month Treasury bill is currently yielding 0.06%.

How were banks able to pay 5% interest on regular savings accounts in the 1960s and charge 5% interest rate on a 20-year mortgage -- but can't even come close to paying a decent interest rate on savings accounts today?

Obviously the banksters want to grab as much profit for themselves as possible. Just as obviously, it's past time that they were regulated by the government the way they were 50 years ago.