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Senator Durbin: GOP Tax Plan Leaves Illinois Middle Income Families Behind


CRYSTAL LAKE –(ENEWSPF)—November 6, 2017

By: Rosemary Piser

Senator Dick Durbin
Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) (Source: Durbin.senate.gov)

On Sunday, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) joined local stakeholders to discuss how the House Republicans’ new tax plan would impact Illinois families especially hard, while mostly benefiting corporations and the wealthy. The current House Republican’s proposal reduces the top corporate tax rate and eliminates the state and local tax (SALT) deduction. It is anticipated that eliminating the SALT deduction could increase taxes on nearly one-third of all taxpayers in Illinois. The SALT deduction is used by 44 million people nationwide in order to avoid being taxed twice on their income, i.e., once at the state level and again at the federal level.

Senator Durbin said, “If Republicans want to get serious about fixing our tax code, it’s time they stopped clinging to the same failed policies that have been proven time and again to hurt middle income families and help the wealthy few. Eliminating or gutting state and local tax deductions will hit Illinois hard—resulting in double taxation for a third of the families in our state. I hope my Republican colleagues will abandon this backwards approach and join a bipartisan effort to provide hard working families across the country the relief they desperately need.”

After first proposing to eliminate the SALT deduction completely, the House Republican tax plan would now gut it by eliminating the deduction for income and sales tax while retaining a deduction for property taxes up to $10,000. The plan would also eliminate key deductions for medical expenses and student loan interest that middle-class families rely on.  Currently, unexpected medical expenses such as hospital care and long-term nursing home care can be deducted if they exceed 10 percent of an individual’s income and taxpayers can also claim up to $2,500 for student loan interest.

Senator Durbin said that if the SALT deduction is entirely eliminated, a family of four living in Crystal Lake making about $76,000 annually, for example, would pay about $1,400 more in taxes each year.

Illinois has the fifth highest number of taxpayers who claim the state and local tax deductions.  Of those in Illinois who claim SALT, around 85 percent of earn less than $200,000 per year. The repeal of the state and local tax deduction would raise $1.3 trillion over 10 years, which Republicans intend to use to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest families and corporations.

Source: www.durbin.senate.gov


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