WASHINGTON (WV News) — Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said she plans to enter an amendment to the Build Back Better Act eliminating a proposed increase to the state and local tax deduction cap.

 

During a Senate GOP press conference Wednesday, Capito said the Democrat-backed increase in the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap included in the bill will only benefit the wealthiest Americans.

 

“In West Virginia, we are one of the states which has lowest participation in terms of being able to take advantage of a SALT deduction,” she said. “I don’t want to subsidize the billionaires in these states, the 10 biggest states, that are going to be getting the largest benefit from this SALT deduction.

 

“I plan to put forth an amendment that will strip that and will take it back to the original 2017 provisions that we wrote into that law,” she said. “I think that would be well received. I think it would be fair in terms of spreading the tax burden, and I think it would also be fair to those taxpayers in those states so they are not subsidizing states and people who live in states who mismanaged their money, have high taxes and don’t pay attention to what those impacts are to the people of their state.”

 

The tax reform package passed in 2017 established a new limit on the amount of SALT that can be deducted on a federal income tax return, according to information from H&R Block.

 

Beginning in 2018, the itemized deduction for state and local taxes paid was capped at $10,000 per return for single filers, head of household filers and married taxpayers filing jointly. The cap is $5,000 for married taxpayers filing separately.

 

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said a more accurate name for the Build Back Better Act, which contains the bulk of President Joe Biden’s social agenda, is the “blue state billionaire bailout” bill.

 

“It’s giving tax cuts to the millionaires and billionaires, mostly in the coastal states and the blue states of our country,” he said. “Democrats are worried about those people, and they want you to think they are worried about the middle class or the lower income classes.”

 

The version of the Build Back Better Act passed by the House of Representatives on Nov. 19 proposes increasing the SALT deduction cap from $10,000 to $80,000, according to information from the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

 

“As we have pointed out many times, any proposal to increase or repeal the SALT deduction cap unavoidably represents a massive giveaway to the wealthy,” the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said in a recently published analysis of the Build Back Better bill.

 

“Using households in Washington, D.C., as an example, we estimate the House SALT proposal would deliver no tax cut to a typical family making less than $100,000 per year, a $3,000 tax cut to families making $200,000 per year and a $25,900 cut to families making $1 million or more per year,” the public policy organization said.