(MONEY Magazine) – Q. Would it make sense for me to buy a new house with my savings just to get a large, tax-deductible mortgage? I'm self-employed, single, in my forties, have a healthy income and no debts. My savings earn a pretax 8% to 10%. Pat Randolph, Walnut Creek, Calif. A. ; Your loan-interest payments would be deductible, but your tax savings would be dwarfed by the mortgage's carrying cost. For your plan to succeed, you would have to invest your savings in something yielding more than the interest you would pay the lender. A 10% mortgage would cost you about 7% a year after taxes, so your investment would have to return about 11% a year before taxes. Federally insured CDs now pay about 8.8%, and stocks have yielded 9.9% annually on average. Unless you dislike the house you own now, don't move.

Q. I recently took a correspondence course in investing. Is it tax deductible? Richard Jansen, St. Louis A. Maybe. If you took the course to help manage or preserve current investments, you may deduct the tuition to the extent that it plus your other miscellaneous expenses exceed 2% of your adjusted gross income.

Q. My wife is from Benin in West Africa. If we bought a house there as a rental property, could we deduct all our travel expenses in connection with looking after it? Samuel Glaser, Alexandria, Va. A. Probably not. To deduct a trip's total cost, its primary purpose would have to be caring for your rental business. Otherwise, your write-off would be limited to expenses directly connected with managing the property -- such as taxi fares from your hotel to the property -- but not the biggie, your air fare.