The future of the “Big Big Beautiful Bill” by President Donald Trump that would finance his second -term agenda could depend on the salt.
The deduction of state and local taxes has been a wedge between the Democrats and the Republicans, but now a division between the Republicans who represent high tax districts and republican tax intransigents that consider it as subsidies of blue states.
Add more confusion about the debate is the president himself, who signed the legislation that limited the deductions first, but since then he has overturned on the subject.
The president of the Caucus of the House of the House, the representative Andy Harris, accompanied by the representative Chip Roy, talks about the Caucus of the Freedom of the House and its continuous negotiations about the “one, large and beautiful ticket” in the Capitol building of the United States, on May 21, 2025 in Washington.
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What is salt?
The salt deduction allows taxpayers to detail state and local taxes in their presentation, including property taxes.
Residents of States such as New York, New Jersey and California, along with cities such as Salt Lake City, Miami and Houston, who have a greater proportion of richer taxpayers and owners, used the deduction more, according to IRS data.
The Fiscal Foundation, a non -profit organization that analyzes the fiscal data, found in 2017 that approximately 90% of the value of the deduction went to families that earned more than $ 100,000.
Before 2017, taxpayers had an unlimited total salt deduction. The average salt deduction was around $ 13,000 throughout the country and below $ 15,000 in most counties, according to the non -profit group The Urban-Brookings Fiscal Policy Center.
The fissures develop after Trump puts limits to salt
During his first term, the Trump Tax and Jobs Reduction Law made huge cuts to federal expenditure to pay tax exemptions for the richest Americans. The bill limited salt deduction by $ 10,000.
Democrats and Republicans in those states who had benefited from the highest salt lid protested against that section of the bill, arguing that would damage their constituents.
Representative Ralph Norman and representative Chip Roy attend the hearing of a Chamber Rules Committee on the United States President Donald Trump’s plan, for extensive tax cuts, in Capitol Hill, in Washington, on May 21, 2025.
Nathan Howard/Reuters
“It is a geographical redistribution of wealth,” said New York Republican congressman Lee Zeldin, CNBC in 2017. “When he takes extra money from a state like New York or New Jersey to pay a deeper tax cut in another place.”
Zeldin, who was Trump’s election to direct the Environmental Protection Agency in his second term, was one of the 13 members of the Republican Chamber who voted against the bill.
The Republicans of the House of Representatives, who finally prevailed, argued that Salt benefited the richest Americans.
“It’s about giving taxpayers bigger payment checks, more salary to take home,” said the then speaker Paul Ryan after the bill approved the Chamber.
The senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, has repeatedly criticized Trump and Republicans for limiting salt deduction and asked to be eliminated.
“Congress has placed a target in the state of New York: you don’t have to be a partisan nose to smell a rat, but I tell you that this plan stinks,” he told reporters in 2017.
Total salt deduced by file
taxfoundation.org
Garrett Watson, director of Policies Analysis of the Tax Foundation, told ABC News that most taxpayers do not detail when the file of their taxes. He said that only a small fraction of taxpayers, approximately 5 million people, have salt deductions greater than $ 10,000.
“I think the reason why it is most prominent is because it has a remarkable impact on those taxpayers. It affects in terms of their net responsibility,” he said. “If you have $ 25,000 in salt deductions, let’s say in New York City, that the difference of $ 15,000 can make a difference in the amount of taxes that you are paying, potentially, more than the hundreds or even thousands of dollars.”
Trump changes his tone, but not everyone plays
Trump ignored criticism when he signed the tax bill in 2017 and advanced with the salt cover, but his messages changed after being voted outside his position in 2020.
During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump promised to end the limit. He did not mention that he defended and signed the 2017 bill that created it.
“I will turn it around, I will recover the salt, I will lower your taxes and much more,” Trump published in Truth Social in September, just before a campaign demonstration in Nassau County, New York, one of the counties with the greatest amount of salt deductions.
President Donald Trump talks about the Defense Shield of the Golden Dome missiles in the Oval Office of the White House, on May 20, 2025, in Washington.
Chris Kleponis/EPA-EFE/Shuttersock
He made the same claim in the rally, but did not offer any detail.
While the New York Republicans welcomed reversal, the Democrats, including Schumer, called Trump for his hypocrisy.
“His tax bill did it, a dagger aimed at the blue states that want to spend a little more to help people with housing, medical care and education, transport,” Schumer said on the Senate floor the day after the demonstration. “Suddenly, now that it is in Long Island, Donald Trump’s selective amnesia comes into action and is fully invested in salt.”
Trump has continued to press for salt changes, but not all in his party have risen on board.
Salt on budget wounds
Salt has become a point of conflict in republican internal struggles on the “great bill” Big Beautiful Beaut “by Trump.
Several members of the Republican Party, including representative Mike Lawler of New York, promised to vote not on the bill without an increase in salt lid.
“So, that is, as it is, I have been very clear. This has no support,” journalists told the journalists last week.
Lawler said that Republican uncomproments were “fucking a large number of people who are being beaten by property taxes.”
Republican representative Nick Lalota in New York declared: “There is no agreement without a true salt solution.”
The tough intransigents of the Republican Party of the House of Representatives withdrew against any agreement to raise the salt limit while looking to reduce the debt.
“You must support the cuts we need to find the savings we need to find. B —-,” said representative Eric Burlison, R-MO. He said about his colleagues pushing to lift the salt lid. “The reality is that we have a debt of $ 37 billion and we have a deficit of $ 2 billion. This is a mathematical problem.”
Representative Mike Lawler addresses a meeting of the Chamber’s Republican Conference with President Donald Trump on the Budget Reconciliation Law at the United States Capitol, May 20, 2025.
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll called Getty Images
Watson said the original limit was designed to compensate for several billion dollars in tax cuts in 2017 and that it is a crucial part of the calculation.
“You will need to find the money elsewhere or increase the deficit,” he said.
Watson also pointed out that the debate also focuses on “fiscal equity.”
“That can come into issues of whether the federal government is effectively subsidizing or reducing effective tax rates for high tax states and high cost of living. That is a deep disagreement between the parties,” he said.
In a meeting with the Republicans of the House of Representatives, Trump told them: “Do not let Salt prevent this bill,” claiming that they could fight to increase the limit later.
A night night agreement that would raise the limit to $ 30,000 threatened the hopes of the republican leadership of bringing the bill to the floor to vote.
An agenda with the words “A great law of Bill Beaf” printed during the hearing of a Chamber Rules Committee on the president of the United States President Donald Trump, for extensive tax cuts, in Capitol Hill, in Washington, on May 21, 2025.
Nathan Howard/Reuters
The representative Andy Harris of Maryland, president of the conservative Caucus of the Freedom House, said the salt agreement pushes the uncomproments “farther from an agreement.”
“This bill really got worse at night,” Harris told Newsmax on Wednesday. “There is no way to happen today.”
“We may need a couple of weeks to iron everything, but it won’t go anywhere today,” he said.
The uncompromising met with Trump on Wednesday afternoon to see if he could break the dead point.
