The unfair SALT cap must go: Limiting deduction of state and local taxes is an unjust penalty that must be repealed

Having three extra days to file 1040s does not lessen the sting for New Yorkers and other Americans who are wrongly paying more in federal income taxes because in 2017 Donald Trump and congressional Republicans found a clever way to inflict pain on those states that were less important to them politically like New York, California, Massachusetts, Illinois and New Jersey.

But with Trump now gone for more than two years, why is the punishment still in effect?

The ploy, written into the Trump tax plan, was to limit to just $10,000 in total state and local taxes the amount that people can deduct when they file with the IRS. Politicians from both parties in the impacted states screamed, but the SALT cap was enacted for tax years 2018 through 2025.

The House voted to repeal the unfair SALT cap three times since 2019, but the Senate hasn’t agreed, even though Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was right in objecting loudly in 2017 when Trump pushed this through. Schumer is still right. But even with President Biden in the White House and the Democrats having both chambers of Congress, repeal still failed because some on the left see it as a sop to the rich. How wrong they are.

Take a firefighter married to a teacher, not rich at all, but middle class. They own a house in the suburbs of New York and pay $20,000 in property taxes a year and thousands more in state income taxes. Yet, while once they could deduct all of those taxes, now only 10 grand can be deducted. That’s a tax hike on them.

If you want to keep out the truly wealthy like the Mike Bloombergs, then add a means test, or raise the SALT tax cap to a more reasonable $80,000.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s slim margin is held by the half dozen New York Republicans who are part of the bipartisan SALT caucus: Reps. Andrew Garbarino, Anthony D’Esposito, Mike Lawler, Nick LaLota, Nicole Malliotakis, Marc Molinaro. Speak to the speaker on SALT.