Thursday, December 21, 2017

Tax Reform Take 2: The States . After federal success, the next reform targets are high-tax states.


The Wall Street Journal reports:
The truth is that few taxpayers even in high tax states will be hurt because they won’t need a deduction beyond the $10,000 state-and-local cap in the bill. Tax writers estimate that only about 5% of households will even itemize their deductions because the bill nearly doubles the standard deduction to $24,000. Most affluent households who do itemize will also be held harmless because of tax-rate reductions.

But the tax math will be tricky for many high-earners in states with the highest tax rates. The bill reduces the top federal tax rate to 37% from 39.6% and increases the threshold at which it kicks in to $600,000 from $470,000 for couples filing jointly. Our friend Don Luskin did the math and says that high earners in states with top rates exceeding 6.56% could see their tax bills increase.



An op-ed well worth your time because 6.56 % could become an important number...