Trump & N.Y. Gov. Cuomo to Meet over SALT Tax Caps Cuomo Says Hurts State
BOLDUAN: This afternoon, New York's Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo was set to meet with President Trump at the White House, and it's all about taxes. The big issue is the state and local tax reduction, lovingly known as SALT. The 2017 tax bill put a cap on those deductions and Cuomo says it has left New York with a massive hole in its budget now. Let's get more on this now. CNN Business correspondent, Alison Kosik, is here. Alison, Democrats, blue states say they're unfairly targeted here. Republicans say it's not their fault that taxes are high. Who is right? What is likely to be hammered out at the White House?</s>ALISON KOSIK, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: You nailed both sides perfectly. What are they able to get done? You know how complicated the tax code can be. It's questionable whether they can get anything done. This all stems from the GOP tax bill that President Trump spearheaded. It basically limits the amount of state and local tax you can deduct from your tax bill. And that's hurting taxpayers in states that have higher taxes. It was one of the more controversial parts of tax reform that was passed in 2017. So this capped how much you could deduct from state and local taxes to just $10,000. Before, the deduction was actually unlimited. I'm laying it out for the SALT change there. The GOP has justified this by saying this would stop the federal government from subsidizing higher-state taxes and raise revenues to pay for tax cuts that were given to mostly businesses. But lawmakers who are in the high-tax states are complaining this cap disproportionately hurts their residents in New York and New Jersey and California. Here's an example for you. Taxpayers in New York will pay roughly an estimated $14 billion more dollars in federal taxes this year, and that drives big earners to places like Miami to try to escape the SALT tax. Losing residents, that means is state revenue goes away as well. So New York Governor Cuomo plans to meet with President Trump today to discuss removing the cap, which disproportionately hits those blue states, and it's a criticism that Cuomo and other Democratic lawmakers have had that levied against the tax bill.</s>ANDREW CUOMO, (D), NEW YORK GOVERNOR: What it does is it has created two different tax structures in this country. And it has created a preferential tax structure in Republican states.</s>KOSIK: Last week, President Trump did tell reporters he's open to revisiting the topic. However, I think the genie is already out of the bottle. Senate Finance Committee Chair Chuck Grassley said the panel would not revisit the deduction cap later this year. Kate, once you start to try to roll back things, especially when it involves taxes, I say good luck.</s>BOLDUAN: There's compromise in the air in Washington today, so --</s>KOSIK: Glass half full</s>BOLDUAN: Sure. I'm not even going to pretend. Great to see you. Thank you so much.</s>KOSIK: Thank you.</s>BOLDUAN: We'll be right back.