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Regulation and Compliance > Legislation

House GOP Mulls New Tax Bill on SALT Deduction

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House Republicans are considering moving a second tax bill “in parallel” with the $78 billion Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024 providing ”relief” from the $10,000 state and local tax deduction cap, the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call reported Tuesday evening. 

The Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act, which includes 100% bonus depreciation, as well as research and development expensing, and also expands the Child Tax Credit, passed the House Wednesday night. It was negotiated by House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., and Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

The House Ways and Means Committee passed the bill by a 40-3 vote on Jan. 19.

Lawmakers have discussed doubling the cap to $20,000 for couples, Roll Call reported. Citing “a source familiar with the negotiations,” it added that the expansion would be paired with “a requirement that parents collecting the child tax credit provide a Social Security number” — an attempt to offset the cost of raising the SALT cap and to placate House Freedom Caucus members concerned about undocumented immigrant parents collecting the credit.

The SALT cap, part of the 2017 tax overhaul during the Trump administration, has long been criticized and targeted by lawmakers from high-tax states like New York and California.

On Tuesday, The Hill reported that “four moderate New York Republicans voted against a procedural rule vote on unrelated bills as a warning shot to House GOP leaders in order to protest an increase of the SALT deduction — a top priority for many blue-state Republicans — not being included” in the tax bill.

Raymond James analysts said Wednesday afternoon that they expect the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024 to pass the House Wednesday and “will be monitoring the size of the ‘yes’ votes as a key signal of the bill’s viability in the Senate.”

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a policy group, said Wednesday in a statement citing the Roll Call story that it was against raising the SALT cap.

“As we’ve written many times before, weakening the SALT cap is costly, regressive, and bad overall tax policy,” the committee said. “This is true even of supposedly ‘targeted’ SALT cap changes. Doubling the SALT cap for married couples, partially offset by requiring a parent and child SSN for the CTC, would likely cost about $10 billion per year on net. More expansive SALT relief could lose far more.”

Maya MacGuineas, president of the committee, added in the statement that increasing the SALT deduction cap alongside the Wyden-Smith “deal without an adequate offset would mean abandoning this principle and would weaken the tax code in the process.”

Weakening the SALT cap “would worsen tax complexity and expand the deficit at a time when debt is already headed toward record levels as a share of the economy,” MacGuineas said.


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