Whether you call yourself rich, fairly well-off, or merely upper-middle-class, you are in the crosshairs of the Washington tax debate.

House Republicans’ proposals to cap or even eliminate itemized deductions would exact a bigger toll on upper- to high-income earners in the professional classes.

These earners are not the Warren Buffetts and the Mitt Romneys. They are the smartly suited, rank-and-file achievers who populate financial districts and research parks. They drive base-model BMWs and have timeshares in Florida, not their own private islands.

They are comfortable but still worry about college tuitions, retirement savings, vacation money — and they are the slice of America that relies most heavily on tax deductions for mortgage interest, state and local taxes, and charitable contributions to reduce their annual taxes, specialists say.

The rise in annual tax payments to the federal government for people in these income ranges could reach into the thousands and perhaps tens of thousands of dollars, depending on the details and the outcome of the intense political wrangling on Capitol Hill.

“The people who would be most hit by these kinds of changes are the upper-middle class, people making a few hundred thousand dollars a year,’’ said Lawrence A. Zelenak, a law professor and tax specialist at Duke University.

A high proportion of those taxpayers live in urban areas and blue states on America’s coasts, intellectual and financial hubs like Boston, New York, and San Francisco. They pay the highest state and local taxes, and their mortgages are big.

“You’re in one of the metro areas with a heavy concentration of people exactly like that,’’ Zelenak said in an interview.

The debate over tax policy inevitably breaks down to who will get hurt the most if the code is changed. The biggest philosophical difference between President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner remains the disagreement over how to extract more taxes from Americans while delivering the least pain to particular constituencies.

Obama wants to raise the marginal rates on the highest 2 percent of taxpayers – the people who he says can afford it, with family incomes above $250,000. Boehner is dug in against any increase in rates, reflecting GOP orthodoxy, but said Monday that he would be willing to limit tax deductions to raise revenues. Obama has indicated a willingness to consider some such limits, but only if tax rates on top earners also rise.

Limiting deductions naturally means a bigger hit to the pocketbooks of people who rely most heavily upon them. Precise impacts and details for where the burden would fall are not available, because the negotiators have only released broad targets for revenue increases of all kinds — $800 billion for Boehner, $1.6 trillion for Obama.

Under current deduction rules, an upper-middle class homeowner in the top marginal rate bracket paying a hypothetical $12,000 in mortgage interest each year can reduce their federal income tax bill by about $4,000. Median property tax bills in wealthy Massachusetts suburbs often exceed $10,000 a year, which would permit additional deductions worth a few thousand dollars more in tax bill reductions.

Capping deductions at $17,000 – an idea former Republican governor Romney floated during his campaign for president, to use one example – would subtract $5,000 from the possible deductions for that homeowner, and raise the annual tax bill by up to $1,750.

That is just part of the tax increase such a person would pay. The scenario does not take into account the effect of potential limits on deductions for state income taxes, charitable contributions, or medical expenses.

Geographically, the increase in the tax burden from imposing deduction limits would be greater for people living on the coasts, rather than in Texas, for example. Massachusetts ranks 16th in deductions, as measured as a percentage of income. Texas ranks 45th.