Democrats recover tax program from state and local government wrangling| Latest News Headlines

WASHINGTON The Build Back Better Act won’t deliver the surprising millionaire tax cut Democrats envisioned earlier this week.

House and Senate Democrats have presented competing proposals to cancel a $ 10,000 limit on state and local tax deductions imposed by Republicans in 2017. The new ideas are alternatives to the full repeal that Senator Chuck Schumer (DN.Y.) launched on Tuesday. .

“It is now understood that it would be totally unacceptable from a financial point of view to give massive tax breaks to the richest people in this country by completely repealing the SALT cap,” said Sen Bernie Sanders (I-Vt .) at HuffPost. Wednesday.

The complete repeal of the so-called SALT deduction would be such a boon to millionaires that they would still get away with paying the new surcharges proposed by Democrats on income above $ 10 million.

Sanders and Sen. Bob Menendez (DN.J.) proposed to maintain the limit, but with an exemption for households earning less than $ 400,000. Such an exemption would cover the vast majority of households in the United States.

Separately, House Democrats on Wednesday proposed raising the cap from $ 10,000 to $ 72,000. Property taxes vary widely from state to state, but the average household pays less than $ 2,500, according to an analysis by WalletHub. The limitation has primarily affected high-income taxpayers in high-tax states.

Sanders said the House idea would be better than a full repeal, but still bad. “This approach would cost over $ 50 billion a year and deliver 37% of its profits to the richest 1%,” he said.

The impending compromise on the so-called SALT cap is one of many political disagreements Democrats appear to be resolving this week as they rush to finalize their Build Back Better legislation – a task lawmakers said became more urgent afterwards. the party’s brutal loss in Tuesday’s gubernatorial election. in Virginia.

The Build Back Better Act would make preschool universally accessible, subsidize child care for working families, invest hundreds of billions in green energy and continue a monthly children’s allowance that began this summer.

Democrats plan to pay new top income taxes to cover the full cost of the legislation, but a coalition of Democrats from heavily taxed states, such as New York, New Jersey and California, has sought to repeal the SALT limit.

Party leaders have been saying for weeks that they will accept SALT’s demands, but have so far resisted coming up with ideas. Democrats in those states have insisted the limit is hurting middle-class families, even though tax experts agree that unlimited local tax deductions massively benefit millionaires.

Menendez said the Senate proposal he and Sanders favored would protect 98% of New Jersey homeowners.

“I would dare say that’s probably true in most of the other states that have been negatively affected by the cap,” Menendez said.