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Comment by refurb | Hacker News Reader

Restoring SALT deductions mostly helps the wealthy since you can deduct up to $10,000.

Democrats don’t want to burn political capital trying to secure a win for the rich.

I often see this said but you can do some quick math to see it affects more than wealthy people. A median single-family home in CA is now $800k, so the property tax on that would almost be enough to hit the $10k. And that’s before any other state or local taxes like income tax.

I actually don’t support reinstating the SALT tax deduction but the discussion of it seems off.

If you recently bought an $800,000 home you're quite wealthy compared to the median American.

>If you recently bought an $800,000 home you're quite wealthy compared to the median American.

I was in Oakland a couple years back and saw a house for $600k - just looking at it made me want a Tetnis shot. I don't envy Californians for their $800k houses

the median american is not paying california taxes, house prices, schools costs etc

If you're willing to say "this deduction only helps wealthy Californians but I define 'wealthy' as people buying median-priced (and lower) homes" than I'll get on board with that statement. I don't think it's a super ambitious or useful one though.

> Restoring SALT deductions mostly helps the wealthy since you can deduct up to $10,000.

It helps folks in higher cost / higher tax areas. It's not really a rich/poor thing.

That was one thing I always chuckled about with respect to the Trump tax cuts and the removal of SALT. They really screwed folks in suburban New Jersey, Long Island, and California. And it was exactly those seats that Republicans lost and which cost them the house in 2018.

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