Employees nationwide are working to finish year-end business before the holidays and House Democrats are no exception. The U.S. House of Representatives voted 218 to 206 on December 19 to pass H.R. 5377 (the “bill”) which temporarily repeals the SALT deduction cap for 2020 and 2021.
A week or so ago, New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and New York Attorney General Letitia James announced that New York, Connecticut, Maryland and New Jersey filed a notice of appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to continue litigation against the federal government for its unlawful and unprecedented cap on the deduction for state and local taxes, known as SALT. The SALT deduction was capped at $10,000 as part of President Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA). This appeal challenges a September 30, 2019 ruling by Judge J. Paul Oetken of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York stating that the $10,000 SALT deduction cap is not unconstitutionally coercive. Judge Oetken held that the states had not plausibly alleged that the cap meaningfully constrains their decision-making processes. We covered the ruling here. He denied the states' motion for summary judgment in their original suit, State of New York et al v. Mnuchin. The four states argued that the SALT cap is a politically motivated bid to effectively raise property taxes in predominately Democratic states.