Tax Deductions

Republicans disagree among each other about the deductibility on Federal personal tax returns of property and sales taxes levied by States, with most of the objections coming from Republicans whose constituents are in high-tax States (which is to say, primarily Progressive-Democrat-led States like New York and California).  I’ve written elsewhere about the nature of that beef.

In my infinite wisdom, I offer a couple of alternatives for compromise.

One is to allow Federal income taxpayers to deduct either their State’s property tax or its sales tax, but not both.  Another is to allow the deductibility of both, but only part of the taxes—say 50%—not all of them.

In either case, after a year or two for transition/adjustment by both the taxpayer and the State of which he’s a citizen, eliminate altogether the deductibility of State taxes on individual Federal income tax returns.

The NLMSM touts the deductibility as Federal government redistributions, but the plain fact is those redistributions are of the monies paid by citizens of other States laundered through the Federal government.

I repeat my chorus: there’s no reason the citizens of Texas or Illinois should pay for the spending decisions of New York or California.  It’s true enough that all the States are in the Union together, and we’re all bound to help each other.  But that’s a two-way street: no State should be creating itself a burden on the other 49 by being irresponsible in its spending and taxing and then demanding those others make it whole from its foolishness.