SALT caucus rejects tax-writing panel’s offer of $30,000 deduction cap

Key New York House Republicans say they are rejecting a proposal from GOP leadership to raise the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap to $30,000 in the party's bill full of President Trump's legislative priorities.

The House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees the tax portions of the GOP megabill, had been discussing increasing the SALT deduction cap from $10,000 to $30,000, two sources told The Hill, as the panel looks to resolve the key disagreement ahead of a planned preliminary vote next week. The panel met for hours behind closed doors Thursday.

Leadership has not released any details about what they offered.

A quartet of Republican lawmakers in the SALT caucus — New York Reps. Elise Stefanik, Andrew Garbarino, Nick LaLota and Mike Lawler — said the $30,000 proposal was a nonstarter.

“We’ve negotiated in good faith on SALT from the start—fighting for the taxpayers we represent in New York. Yet with no notice or agreement, the Speaker and the House Ways and Means Committee unilaterally proposed a flat $30,000 SALT cap—an amount they already knew would fall short of earning our support,” the group wrote in a statement. “It’s not just insulting—it risks derailing President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.”

“New Yorkers already send far more to Washington than we get back—unlike many so-called ‘low-tax’ states that depend heavily on federal largesse. A higher SALT cap isn’t a luxury. It’s a matter of fairness,” the lawmakers added. “We reject this offer.”

The group’s rejection of the proposal is the latest snafu in the conference’s sprint to pass its Trump agenda bill, the centerpiece of which is an extension of the 2017 Trump tax cuts. For months, however, lawmakers have been at odds over what to do with the SALT deduction cap, which was first put in place as part of the 2017 package and has since been a target of Republicans in high-tax blue states.

Moderate Republicans are pushing to lift the cap to deliver tax relief for their constituents, while deficit hawks are concerned about such a move because of its cost.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Thursday morning the $30,000 deduction cap was under discussion, among other figures.

“I’ve heard that number, and I’ve heard others as well,” Johnson said when asked about the $30,000 number. “It’s still an ongoing discussion amongst the members, and I think we’ll find the right point.”

“I’m not gonna handicap it because I’m not sure exactly what that is, but there’s a lot of analysis that’s gone into it,” he added. “We want to make sure that most of the constituents, the large share, the vast majority of the constituents of the affected districts, are covered by that, and I think we can find the right number that will do it and satisfy all the the various concerns about it.”

Athina Lawson, a press secretary for Johnson, pointed to those comments, adding in a post on social platform X that the Speaker said the $30,000 cap is “one number among others in ongoing discussions amongst members.”

In a separate statement Thursday, Garbarino and Rep. Young Kim (R-Calif.), the GOP co-chairs of the SALT Caucus, accused leadership of waiting "until the eleventh hour to leak a number that they know does not provide the relief our constituents desperately need. To be clear, nothing has been agreed to — and whatever proposal they are floating has not been presented to or approved by the caucus."

Updated at 6:54 p.m. EDT