Suozzi will not vote on tax code changes until SALT deduction cap is repealed

Robert Pelaez
U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) told members of the press why he and other lawmakers are pushing to bring the SALT deduction back in it's entirety. (Screenshot by Robert Pelaez)

U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) said he will oppose any changes to the nation’s tax code until the $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions has been repealed.

“No SALT, no deal,” Suozzi said on Monday. “I am not going to support any change in the tax code unless there is a restoration of the SALT deduction. The cap on the SALT deduction has been a body blow to New York and middle-class families in New York.”

Reports have surfaced over the past weeks of the Biden administration seeking an increase in corporate tax rates from 21 to 28 percent. The increase would still be less than the 35 percent corporate tax rate throughout the presidencies of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

The proposal would also increase the global minimum tax paid from roughly 13 percent to 21 percent and would increase the highest personal income tax rate from 37 percent to nearly 40 percent, according to an analysis by The Washington Post last week.

Suozzi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) have advocated repealing the cap on the deduction for state and local taxes, which was implemented in 2017 under former President Donald Trump.

“Without the full SALT deduction, families will continue to leave our state and the last thing we need is to lose our residents and taxpayers,” Suozzi said. “Every day the SALT cap is in place, the taxpayers of New York are hurting. The people of New York need relief now. The cap must be repealed.”

“When it comes to SALT, if you think Long Islanders needed and deserved this money before the coronavirus took hold, the stakes are even higher now because the cap is costing our community tens-of-thousands of dollars they could be using amid the crisis,” Schumer said this month.

Repealing the tax cap, Suozzi said, will provide local governments and residents in states such as New York, which have been affected the most by the coronavirus, necessary resources in the ongoing battle against the virus.

Suozzi also said that New York has recently been one of the states that have paid more money to the federal government than they received.

From 2015 to 2019, Suozzi said, New York, sent $116 billion more to the federal government than it got back. Over the same period, Kentucky received $148 billion and South Carolina received $87 billion more than they contributed to Washington.

According to 2017 data from the IRS, the average state and local taxes deduction for Nassau County homeowners prior to Trump signing the cap into effect was $26,259.

In the same year, 53 percent of individuals who lived in the 3rd Congressional District, which includes Manhasset, Roslyn, Port Washington, Great Neck and Floral Park, among other areas, and stretches from Whitestone, Queens, to Kings Park in Suffolk County, took advantage of the deduction.

The average deduction for those who filed in the district was $33,317, according to the data.

Nearly 50 percent of people who lived in the 4th Congressional District, which incorporates central and southern Nassau County, including Floral Park, Garden City, Hempstead, Mineola, Carle Place, New Hyde Park and Westbury, used the deduction in 2017, with an average of $21,127, according to the data.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo also echoed the calls to repeal the cap made by Suozzi and Schumer in February.

“They took tax money from New York, New Jersey, other Democratic states and they transferred it to Republican states,” Cuomo said. “That’s what the quote/unquote SALT provision was all about. SALT is technical and confusing, state and local taxes. But they for the first time ever taxed the taxes that people pay.”

Share this Article