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Senate Majority Leader Thune Signals Trouble for House SALT Compromise


The House’s deal to raise the cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions to $40,000 may not make it through the Senate, according to Senate Majority Leader John Thune.

Bloomberg reports that, while the chamber has just begun deliberations on President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax bill, Thune’s office has already indicated that the SALT provision will likely need to be revised. 

“It would be very, very hard to get the Senate to vote for what the House did,” Thune told Politico. The House’s increased cap was a key concession to Republicans from high-tax states like New York and California, who pushed for relief from the $10,000 limit put in place under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. House Speaker Mike Johnson ultimately agreed to the higher threshold to secure their support. 

But in the Senate, it looks different. Alongside the SALT deduction increase, the bill also contains extensions of Trump-era tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year, as well as new measures such as temporary tax exemptions for tips and overtime pay. Several senators have raised concerns about the bill’s overall cost, along with cuts to Medicaid and clean energy tax credits. 

Representative Nick LaLota, a Republican from New York, warned that any rollback of the SALT provision could jeopardize the bill’s support in the House. “No SALT. No Deal. For Real,” he wrote on social media on the night of June 3.

Senate deliberations on the bill are underway, and according to Thune’s office, the House-passed SALT provision will need to be revised.