Investors & landlords

by default qualified dividends (QD) and net long-term capital gains (LTCG) are excluded from investment income for purposes of determining deductible investment interest.  you can make an election to include as much QD and LTCD as you want if needed or wanted to increase the deduction for investment interest expense.

doing so will disqualify those amounts for the special rate that QD and LTCG get.