Can a pandemic get New Jersey homeowners their full SALT deduction back?

Phil Murphy hopes so. And so does Josh Gottheimer.

Murphy used his daily COVID-19 briefing today to call for any future stimulus bills emerging from Washington to restore the full federal income tax deduction for SALT, or state and local taxes.

The deduction was capped at $10,000 as part of the 2017 tax reform act.

That’s been tough medicine for New Jersey homeowners, many of whom pay more than $10,000 a year in property taxes alone.

Democrats running for the House in 2018 made this a big issue – and successfully so. The Dems won all but one seat in the state, although one of the winners, Jeff Van Drew, is now a Republican.

The governor said doing away with the $10,000 cap and allowing state residents to deduct all their state and local taxes, as was the case prior to the change in 2017, will help them cope with unfolding
economic woes caused by the pandemic.

At about the same time, Gottheimer sent out a release calling for the same thing.

It’s not as if this has been a dead issue.

Mikie Sherrill coined the phrase “the 12 days of SALT” and took to the House floor last December to get the full deduction restored. And it worked. The Democratic-controlled House voted to do just that late
last year.

But the Senate didn’t even take it up.

And that obstacle likely remains.