| A tax break affecting relatively few people in high-income brackets looks to be one of the keys to unlocking action on President Donald Trump’s cornerstone tax and spending bill. There are numerous parts of the bill still in flux, but the state and local tax deduction, or “SALT,” remains a major point of tension between the House and Senate as Congress barrels towards a self-imposed July 4 deadline to get the bill to Trump’s desk. Moderate House Republicans met with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent today to hash out a deal but emerged without much to show for it. The version of the tax bill passed by the House would raise the cap on SALT to $40,000 and phase down the break for those with incomes of more than $500,000. Senators who want to decrease the cost of the tax bill are seeking a lower income threshold. The two sides are continuing to wrangle over the details. Lawmakers opposed to the SALT cap increase have complained it only benefits wealthy Americans in a handful of states. Most Americans will never claim the deduction. Even in the districts of the so-called SALT caucus – a group of House Republicans from New York, New Jersey and California – a minority of taxpayers would benefit from raising the cap, as my colleagues Mathieu Benhamou and Erik Wasson previously reported. One of the biggest reasons: most taxpayers don’t itemize their deductions. Rather, they opt to take the standard deduction of $15,000 for individuals. But the high-income taxpayers who would benefit from raising the deduction cap increase are a vocal and important constituency in the swing districts represented by the “SALT-y” Republicans. To make this esoteric debate more personal, a SALT calculator from Bloomberg’s graphics team (link below) allows you to estimate how your taxes might be impacted by the House proposal. Senator Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma Republican involved in the negotiations, said that lawmakers could strike a deal that keeps the $40,000 cap but lowers the income limit. That could assuage concerns from lawmakers who say it’s too expensive. But the devil’s in the details. There’s still wrangling over Medicaid cuts and other cost-cutting elements as well. Nonetheless, Senate Republicans are ambitiously hoping to bring their version of the tax bill to a vote by the weekend and GOP leaders vowed to stay at work until it gets done. | 
