In these articles, Stan Veuger and Benjamin Zycher debate the Republican proposal to eliminate the state and local tax deduction. Veuger asserts that the deduction reflects a preference for local solutions for local problems and that the deduction avoids double taxation. Zycher counters that eliminating the deduction would not result in double taxation because the federal government offers a different set of goods and services than do state and local governments. That the taxes flow from the same income, Zycher asserts, is irrelevant to discussion of SALT because it is the enumerated powers under the Constitution that enshrine the concept of local solutions for local problems. Read more here and here.
Also see John Kinkaid’s analysis of the SALT deduction here.
