...the biggest loopholes in the U.S. Tax Code — generally referred to as tax expenditures — aren’t just the tricks of the trade for millionaires with offshore bank accounts. For the vast majority of Americans, they’re just how things work: You don’t pay taxes on your health insurance or Medicare benefits; you contribute tax-free to your 401(k); and your mortgage interest pushes down your tax bill each year.

And even if you dump the biggest of the set, these tax perks don’t even come close to closing the deficit. At best, the top 10 would pull in an extra $834 billion a year, according to Joint Committee on Taxation figures. Considering the hole lawmakers are trying to fill is several trillion dollars large, it’s clear they wouldn’t even come close.

Here are the 10 biggest tax loopholes — and the reasons why most of them will survive the fiscal cliff....

Read it all.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Health & Medicine • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • Personal Finance • Taxes • The U.S. Government • Budget • The National Deficit • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate • US Presidential Election 2012

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