House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday that the Trump administration’s plan to eliminate state and local tax, or SALT, deductions will cause home values to fall by 10 percent.
“Another assault on the middle class is the state and local tax deductions … The average deduction is $16,000; [you] no longer have that deduction. You will lose it under this plan. Not only that, it's been reported by realtors that … you'd lose 10% of the value for your home ... it's just a rip off of the middle class,” Pelosi said, according to Fox Business Network.
“Right here before our eyes, in this House, the Republicans are replacing the great American ladders of opportunity with the silver spoon of plutocracy and aristocracy. Their agenda raises taxes on the middle class. That is the fact,” Pelosi said during the debate on the budget measure.
Meanwhile, a key meeting between Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives ended on Thursday without a compromise on a proposal to eliminate a popular deduction for state and local taxes, the top House tax writer told reporters, Reuters reported.
“I‘m going to stay at the table and so is the leadership ... to try to find a solution,” U.S. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady said after a dozen Republicans from states that oppose the deduction’s elimination voted against a key budget measure to advance tax reform.
“They made it clear. They need this problem solved before they vote ‘yes’ on tax reform,” he added.
On another front, the U.S. House of Representatives helped pave the way on Thursday for deep tax cuts sought by President Donald Trump and Republican leaders, but barely overcame a revolt within party ranks that could foreshadow trouble ahead for the tax overhaul, Reuters reported.
The Republican-controlled House voted 216-212 to pass a budget blueprint for the 2018 fiscal year. The measure will enable the tax legislation, due to be introduced next week, to win congressional approval without any Democratic votes.
But House Republican leaders came within two votes of failure. Democrats were unified in their opposition, and 20 Republicans voted against the bill, many to express disapproval of a provision in Trump’s tax outline that would repeal an income tax deduction for state and local taxes.
Discord is also looming over a potential provision to scale back a popular tax-deferred U.S. retirement savings program. Both those provisions are aimed at offsetting revenue losses that would result from the planned sweeping tax cuts, particularly for companies.
Meanwhile, eliminating the popular deductions could increase federal revenue by $1.3 trillion over the next decade, Fox Business Network reported, citing the Tax Policy Center.
“However, as a result, about 24% of taxpayers nationwide would see an increase in taxes, the Tax Policy Center said. Those increases would be outsized for residents in high-tax states such as New York and California, where resident taxpayers would pay more than 30% of the tax increase from trashing the deduction,” Fox Business Network reported.
“Additionally, individuals with incomes in excess of $100,000 would have the largest tax increase in both dollars and as a percentage of income – paying 90% of the increase associated with eliminating SALT,” the network explained.
Fox Business Network said the Trump administration has said that eliminating the deduction would level the playing field for all states and take the federal government “out of the business of subsidizing states.”
To be sure, Democrats have called the tax plan a giveaway to the rich and corporations that would swell the federal deficit.
Republicans are traditionally opposed to letting the deficit grow. But in a stark reversal of that stance, the party’s budget resolution, previously passed by the Senate, called for adding up to $1.5 trillion to federal deficits over the next decade to pay for the tax cuts.
The outline of the Republican plan announced last month would cut the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent, the small business rate to 25 percent from up to 39.6 percent and the top individual rate to 35 percent from 39.6 percent.
Trump, who promised major tax cuts as a candidate last year, has asked Congress to pass the tax legislation by the end of the year. Even though his fellow Republicans control both the House and Senate, the president has been unable to secure passage of major legislation, having failed to secure a promised repeal of the Obamacare law.
Republicans are also looking for a signature achievement to tout as the 2018 congressional election year approaches.
“Big News - Budget just passed!” Trump wrote on Twitter.
Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, who has said he wants the House to pass the tax overhaul by the Nov. 23 Thanksgiving holiday, said passage of the budget resolution was an “enormous step” toward that goal.
But he declined to take a position on the possibility of capping annual contributions into 401(k) plans, which for four decades have helped millions of Americans save for retirement by offering tax savings.
Trump and Brady have reopened the door to the possibility of such caps on Wednesday as Republicans scramble to find sources of revenue to cover the tax cuts.
Brady said he planned to introduce the tax bill next Wednesday and to begin committee deliberations on it the following week, on Nov. 6.
REVOLT FROM HIGH-TAX STATES
A meeting after the budget vote between Brady and Republicans opposing the elimination of the deduction for state and local taxes ended without a compromise, though Brady said he would work to find a solution.
“They made it clear. They need this problem solved before they vote ‘yes’ on tax reform,” Brady added.
Eliminating the deduction would hit middle-class voters in high-tax states like California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Republican Representative John Katko of New York, leaving the meeting with Brady, said supporters of the deduction “stood firm, saying no as a group today to let them know we’re not kidding, and we also are going to let the Senate know if they try and take it (the deduction) out, they’re going to have a problem.”
The budget plan passed on Thursday will enable the 100-seat Senate to pass tax legislation with a simple majority rather than a 60-vote super-majority that would be tough to reach given solid Democratic opposition. While Republicans hold a comfortable majority in the House they have just a 52-48 margin in the Senate.
The White House and congressional Republicans excluded Democrats as they developed the plan, and it appeared unlikely a significant number of Democrats would get behind the proposal.
Independent analysts forecast last month that corporations and the wealthiest Americans would benefit the most and many upper middle-income people would face higher taxes under the tax outline unveiled by the Republicans.
The proposal would cut taxes for companies and individuals by up to $6 trillion over the next decade, the analysts said.
(Newsmax wire service Reuters contributed to this report).
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