Payments of interest due on loans. These may be owed by individuals, firms, or the government. Individual interest payments are mostly not tax-deductible, with some exceptions, such as for mortgage interest in the US. Interest payments made by firms have to be subtracted from trading profits to obtain total profits, and interest received has to be added. Interest payments by governments are an important part of government spending, especially in countries with high ratios of government debt to gross domestic product.