Trump advises on SALT deduction
Tells GOP lawmakers to negotiate 'fair number'
By: Megan Burrow
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey
..... President-elect Donald Trump told House Republicans on Saturday [01/11/2025] to negotiate a "fair number" on the controversial $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions also known as SALT, a Politico report said.
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More than a dozen members from New Jersey, New York and California met with Trump and members of his staff at his Mar-a-Lago resort to discuss the tax, congestion pricing and other issues.
..... During his presidential campaign, Trump promised to lift the cap.
..... "I will turn it around, get SALT back, lower your taxes, and so much more," Trump said in a post on the social media platform Truth Social in September. [2024]
..... The president certainly wants to increase the deduction for SALT to provide more relief, because he knows that our mayors and governors are crushing taxpayers," Representative Nicole Malliotakis, R-New York, told Politico after the meeting Saturday. [01/11/2025] "He wants us to work on what would be a fair number."
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In his first term as president, Trump signed a tax law in 2017 that set the SALT cap at $10,000. critics said the cap, which is slated to expire at the end of the year, [2025] targeted Democratic-leaning states that have high property taxes.
..... New Jersey's average property tax bill is nearly $10,000 and is much higher in many municipalities in some parts of the state, such as Bergen County.
..... The SALT deduction allows taxpayers to reduce the amount of their annual income that can be taking out how much they pay in state income taxes and local property taxes. The deduction has been in place since 1913, according to the Congressional Research Service.
..... The $10,000 amounted to a tax increase for many, and some lawmakers have pushed since 2017 for it to be amended. In 2016, before the cap was put in place, New Jersey;s average SALT deduction was just over $18,000, and the largest group filing a claim earned between $100,000 and $200,000 a year, said a report from the National Association of Realtors.
..... Lawmakers; efforts to lift the SALT cap have fallen short over the years. Some progressive Democrats have criticized the SALT deduction as a tax break for the wealthy. And many Republicans from low-tax states also oppose an increase in the cap.
..... An earlier proposal to double the cap from $10,000 to $20,000 would cost the federal government $22 billion over a decade, the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School reported.
..... A recent report by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated that doubling the SALT cap for married couples would reduce revenue by $170 billion, on top of the $3.9 trillion deficit impact of extending the expiring individual and estate tax provisions in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and having 94% of its befit go to households making over $200,000 per year.