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Cuomo echoes Suozzi, Schumer’s call to repeal SALT cap

Robert Pelaez
Gov. Andrew Cuomo echoed the need to repeal the cap on state and local taxes on Friday, something U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) has tried to pass legislation on for more than a year. (Photo from the Island Now archives)

Gov. Andrew Cuomo echoed the need to repeal the $10,000 cap on state and local taxes throughout New York on Friday.

Cuomo made the announcement with New Jersey Gov., and fellow Democrat, Phil Murphy.  Cuomo touted the importance for officials from predominantly Democratic states to advocate to repeal the cap, which was set into law in 2017 by then President Donald Trump.

“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.”

The governors’ call to repeal the cap followed Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) introduced new, bipartisan legislation to give more money back into the hands of taxpayers throughout New York. Suozzi touted Cuomo’s advocacy to repeal the cap.

“Thank you Governor Cuomo and Governor Murphy for your continued advocacy in calling on Congress to pass legislation that repeals the unfair SALT cap,” Suozzi said. “The cap on the SALT deduction was a target on blue states and a real body blow.

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.

“Some New Yorkers are complicit in funding our own demise by supporting elected officials who not only redirect billions of New York state’s federal tax dollars to their own states but also capped the SALT deduction. This is literally chasing people out of New York,” Suozzi said.  “New Yorkers are left holding the bag in the form of higher taxes and our largest companies are being lured to other lower-cost states.”

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. 

From 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, in 2017 used the deduction, receiving an average of $21,127, according to the data.

The legislation, Suozzi said, has a bipartisan following from fellow Reps. Andrew Garbarino (R-NY), Young Kim (R-CA), and Chris Smith (R-NJ).

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