Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., speaks during a House Oversight and Accountability Committee impeachment inquiry hearing into U.S. President Joe Biden on Sept. 28, 2023.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
House Republicans have advanced trillions of tax breaks as part of President Donald Trump’s economic package.
After debating the legislation overnight, the House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees tax, passed its portion of the legislation on Wednesday morning in a 26-19 party line vote.
But the battle over the deduction for state and local taxes, known as SALT, remains in limbo.
The text released Monday afternoon would raise the SALT cap to $30,000 for those with a modified adjusted gross income of $400,000 or less. But some House lawmakers still want to see a higher limit before the full House vote.
While the SALT deduction is a key priority for certain lawmakers in high-tax states, the current $10,000 cap was added to help fund the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, or TCJA, of 2017.
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Following the vote, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., said in a statement that Ways and Means Republicans will “continue to work closely with President Trump and our House colleagues to get the One, Big, Beautiful Bill that delivers on the President’s agenda to his desk as soon as possible.”
The full House vote could come as early as next week. But the legislation could see significant changes in the Senate, experts say.
House Republicans’ proposed tax cuts
The House Ways and Means Committee legislation includes several of Trump’s campaign priorities, including extensions of tax breaks enacted via the TCJA.
If enacted as drafted, Republicans could also deliver no tax on tips and tax-free overtime pay. But questions remain about the details of these provisions.
Rather than cutting taxes on Social Security, the plan includes an extra $4,000 deduction for older Americans, which may not fully cover Social Security income, according to some experts.
The $4,000 deduction costs $90 billion over 10 years, compared to $1 trillion for exempting Social Security income from tax, Garrett Watson, director of policy analysis at the Tax Foundation, wrote in a post on X Tuesday.
“Tax filers with no other income sources outside of Social Security would typically see little benefit, while others may see bigger gains from this idea,” he wrote in that thread.
The House Ways and Means bill also extends the maximum child tax credit of $2,000 enacted via the TCJA, and temporarily raises the tax break to $2,500 per child through 2028.
However, some policy experts have criticized the proposed credit design since lower earners typically can’t claim the full amount.
The proposed legislation “did nothing for the 17 million children that are left out of the current $2,000 credit,” Kris Cox, director of federal tax policy with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ federal fiscal policy division, told CNBC.
