MIKE LAWLER

The 2017 Tax Act reversed over a century of precedent in the federal tax code — drastically curtailing the state and local tax deduction by capping it at $10,000. An analysis by the New York state Department of Taxation and Finance projected that the cap would increase New Yorkers' federal taxes by up to $15 billion annually. As one of the nation’s top donor states, this reversal is significantly more damaging to New York than many other states. Prior to enactment of the 2017 law, New York state already had the widest disparity among all states when factoring how much money New York sent to Washington, D.C. and the funding it received in return. Other donor states, including Connecticut, Maryland, and New Jersey are being similarly injured.

From Mike:

"Families and seniors in New York’s Hudson Valley are facing an affordability crisis brought on by sky-high state taxes courtesy of Albany politicians, record inflation due to reckless federal spending and sagging retirement and savings accounts due to a struggling market.

Making all of this even worse is the $10,000 cap on your ability to deduct state and local taxes on your federal income tax return. The limitation on your State-and-Local Tax — commonly called SALT — Deduction was passed into law back in 2017 under a Republican president and Congress, and then the Democratic President and Congress that followed did absolutely nothing to fix it — despite their promises to do so.

Enough. It’s time for bipartisan action that puts hardworking taxpayers first.

There is no question that families need relief now. Under the current law, individuals can file for a federal deduction on state and local taxes up to $10,000 while a married individual filing a separate return can only file $5,000. A marriage penalty that adds insult to injury. It’s why I’ve introduced the “SALT Marriage Penalty Elimination Act,” which would let married couples filing individual returns deduct the full $10,000 while those filing joint returns would be able to deduct $20,000.

Our region already pays some of the highest property taxes in the nation; and yet last year’s Inflation Reduction Act doubled the size of the IRS, spending $80 billion to hire 87,000 new IRS agents and employees. Defenders of that measure said that the new audits would be focused on millionaires and billionaires, yet according to the IRS’ own data, the top 25% of all income earners already pay 89% of all income taxes.

My new legislation will be the first in a package of bills, known as the Hudson Valley Affordability Pact, that I will be championing in Congress to reduce the tax burden on Hudson Valley families. I remain committed to a full repeal of the SALT cap and will be working with my colleagues in both parties to get this done.

The bipartisan coalition of members from the northeast supporting this legislation highlights our commitment to providing the tax relief that families and seniors in our communities need. By working across the aisle, I am hopeful that the SALT Marriage Penalty Elimination Act will become law in this Congress."