SALT Deduction
States Should Chart Their Own Course on SALT Deductions
May 21, 2025 • By ITEP Staff
While a federal SALT cap is hotly debated, capping deductibility at $10,000 was an unambiguously good idea at the state level. States would be smart to stick with the current cap or, better yet, go even farther and repeal SALT deductions outright. Going along with a higher federal SALT cap would double down on a regressive tax cut that will mostly benefit a small number of relatively wealthy state residents and cost states significant revenue.
Weakening the SALT Cap Would Make House Tax Package More Expensive and More Tilted in Favor of the Wealthiest
August 7, 2023 • By Steve Wamhoff
The three tax bills that cleared the House Ways and Means Committee in June are reportedly stalled due to some House Republicans’ demands that the package include provisions weakening the $10,000 cap on deductions for state and local taxes (SALT). Modifying the House tax package in this way would make it much more expensive while benefiting the richest fifth of taxpayers almost exclusively.
Latest Proposal from Senate Democrats Would Bar the Rich from SALT Cap Relief
December 7, 2021 • By Steve Wamhoff
Richest taxpayers would receive $0 benefit under new compromise compared with 51 percent of the benefit of House-passed SALT provision DOWNLOAD NATIONAL AND STATE-BY-STATE ESTIMATES In the latest chapter of the saga over SALT, some Senate Democrats are discussing a new compromise that would amend the House-passed provision providing relief from the SALT cap to […]
Senators Menendez and Sanders Show the Way Forward on the SALT Cap
November 3, 2021 • By Steve Wamhoff
Amending the Build Back Better bill to fully repeal the SALT cap would mean that the richest 1 percent could pay less in personal income taxes than they do now, which goes against everything President Biden has said for the past year as he promoted this legislation.
Repealing the SALT Cap Would Wipe Out Revenue Raised by the House Ways and Means Bill’s Income Tax Provisions
September 23, 2021 • By Steve Wamhoff
There are several ways that the House leadership could avoid this problem. One approach is for lawmakers to replace the SALT cap with a different kind of limit on tax breaks for the rich that actually raises revenue and avoids disfavoring some states compared to others as the SALT cap does. ITEP has suggested a way to do this.
Options to Reduce the Revenue Loss from Adjusting the SALT Cap
August 26, 2021 • By Carl Davis, ITEP Staff, Matthew Gardner, Steve Wamhoff
If lawmakers are unwilling to replace the SALT cap with a new limit on tax breaks that raises revenue, then any modification they make to the cap in the current environment will lose revenue and make the federal tax code less progressive. Given this, lawmakers should choose a policy option that loses as little revenue as possible and that does the smallest amount of damage possible to the progressivity of the federal tax code.
States Can Make Their Tax Systems Less Regressive by Reforming or Repealing Itemized Deductions
February 5, 2020 • By Carl Davis
Itemized deductions are problematic tax subsidies that need to close. The mortgage interest deduction, for instance, is often lauded as a way to help middle-class families afford homes and charitable deductions are touted as incentivizing gifts to charitable organizations. But the dirty little secret is that itemized deductions primarily benefit higher-income households while largely failing to achieve their purported goals.
ITEP Urges IRS to End SALT Workaround Scheme for Businesses
January 29, 2020 • By Carl Davis
A new IRS proposal could once again allow wealthy business owners to use state charitable tax credits–including tax credits for donating to support private and religious K-12 schools–to dodge the federal government’s $10,000 cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions.
IRS’s SALT Workaround Regulations Should be Strengthened, Not Rejected
August 13, 2019 • By Carl Davis
Lawmakers are seeking to achieve a backdoor repeal of the $10,000 cap on deductions for state and local taxes paid (SALT) by invalidating recent IRS regulations that cracked down on schemes that let taxpayers dodge the cap. If successful, their efforts would drain tens of billions of dollars from federal coffers each year, with the vast majority of the benefits going to the nation’s wealthiest families.
The SALT Cap Isn’t Harming State and Local Revenues. Myths About It May Be.
June 24, 2019 • By Carl Davis
A House Ways and Means subcommittee hearing on Tuesday will explore a highly controversial provision of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) that prevents individuals and families from writing off more than $10,000 in state and local tax (SALT) payments on their federal tax forms each year. The focus of the hearing will be whether the cap negatively affects state and local revenue streams that fund schools, firefighters, and other services. There are at least three ways this could happen though only one of those is plausible, and it’s not the one that the organizers of this hearing likely…
New SALT Workaround Regulations Narrow a Tax Shelter, but Work Remains to Close it Entirely
June 11, 2019 • By Carl Davis
Today the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released its final regulations cracking down on a tax shelter long favored by private and religious K-12 schools, and more recently adopted by some “blue state” lawmakers in the wake of the 2017 Trump tax cut. The regulations come more than a year after the IRS first announced the […]
ITEP Resources on Proposed SALT Workaround Regulations
June 5, 2019 • By Carl Davis
After states implemented laws that allow taxpayers to circumvent the new $10,000 cap on deductions for state and local taxes (SALT), the IRS has proposed regulations to address this practice. It’s a safe bet the IRS will try to crack down on the newest policies that provide tax credits for donations to public education and other public services, but it remains to be seen whether new regulations will put an end to a longer-running practice of exploiting tax loopholes in some states that allow public money to be funneled to private schools.
What to Watch for When the IRS Releases Its SALT Workaround Regulations
April 1, 2019 • By Carl Davis
The Treasury Department and IRS last summer proposed regulations that would make it more difficult for taxpayers to avoid the $10,000 cap on deductions for state and local taxes (SALT). Now, likely days away from the unveiling of the final version of IRS regulations on SALT cap workarounds, Carl Davis recaps the finer points ITEP will be watching for when the regulations become public.
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