Taxation in the US (2022): State and local taxation: State and local tax deduction + Use tax

The United States federal state and local tax (SALT) deduction is an itemized deduction that allows taxpayers to deduct certain taxes paid to state and local governments from their adjusted gross income. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 put a $10,000 cap on the SALT deduction for the years 2018–2025.

The SALT deduction reduces the cost of state and local taxes to taxpayers. It disproportionately benefits wealthy and high-earning taxpayers in areas with high state and local taxes. The Tax Policy Center estimated in 2016 that fully eliminating the SALT deduction would increase federal revenue by nearly $1.3 trillion over 10 years.

Definition.

For United States Federal Income Tax purposes, state and local taxes are defined in section 170(a) of the Internal Revenue Code as taxes paid to states and localities in the forms of: (1) real property taxes; (2) personal property taxes; (3) income, war profits, and excess profits taxes; and (4) general sales taxes. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 capped the use of this itemized deduction at $10,000 ($5,000 for married persons who file separately).

Effects.

Tax savings from the SALT deduction flow disproportionately to those with high incomes. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, in 2014 88% of the benefit of the SALT deduction accrued to those with incomes above $100,000 and only 1% accrued to those making less than $50,000.

The SALT deduction primarily benefits those in high-tax states, which tend to be those with consistent Democratic legislative majorities. In 2016, the ten counties with the largest SALT deductions per filer (on average) were in New York, California, Connecticut and New Jersey. These ten counties are in the New York metropolitan area and San Francisco Bay Area, which have high concentrations of wealth and expensive real estate. Since the deduction was capped at $10,000 in 2017, many homeowners have been unable to deduct thousands of dollars that they previously could, beyond what they pay in property taxes, to state, county and local governments in these places.

In 2017, only taxpayers in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey (the states with the first, second, third, and ninth highest GDP per capita) on average sent more than $1,000 each to the federal government above what the state received per capita. Capping the SALT deduction tends to increase this balance of payments deficit.

Economic modeling by the economists Gilbert E. Metcalf and Martin Feldstein suggests that eliminating the SALT deduction would have "little if any impact on state and local spending". The economist Edward Gramlich has likewise concluded that eliminating the deduction would have little effect on state and local spending; he also finds that eliminating the deduction would likely not induce many high-income taxpayers to leave low-income communities.

A use tax is a type of tax levied in the United States by numerous state governments. It is essentially the same as a sales tax but is applied not where a product or service was sold but where a merchant bought a product or service and then converted it for its own use, without having paid tax when it was initially purchased. Use taxes are functionally equivalent to sales taxes. They are typically levied upon the use, storage, enjoyment, or other consumption in the state of tangible personal property that has not been subjected to a sales tax.