Latest news with #SALT
Boston Globe
13 hours ago
- Business
- Boston Globe
The SALT income tax deduction cap was increased to $40,000 in Trump's bill. Should you take it?
For the last seven years, the tax code has limited the amount taxpayers may write off for state and local taxes to $10,000. Prior to that, the cap was a much more generous $40,000. Advertisement The $10,000 cap was imposed by Congress as part of the first Trump administration's mammoth tax cut plan. It was quite costly to taxpayers in places like Boston's western suburbs, where local property tax bills range in excess of $25,000 (and where the state income tax is 5 percent and the sales tax 6.25 percent). Indeed, for some of the state's wealthiest residents, local property taxes plus state taxes exceeds $40,000. (Taxpayers must choose to include state income taxes or state sales taxes in their calculations, but not both.) This year's tax and spending bill, pushed by the current Trump administration, reversed what the previous Trump administration did by quadrupling the cap back to $40,000. It was done mostly to keep Republican Congress members who represent wealthy suburban districts on board for a bill that, overall, favors the well-off over those struggling to get by. Advertisement Here's what you should know about the SALT income tax deduction. Who qualifies for the SALT deduction? All taxpayers who pay state and local taxes may take the deduction, but it only makes sense for those who are relatively well-off. A threshold question for all federal income taxpayers is whether to take the How does the standard deduction work? The amount of income tax a taxpayer owes is based, logically enough, on how much income the taxpayer has. The more income, the more taxes . But the tax code allows for gross income to be reduced by a multitude of deductions, producing a taxable 'adjusted gross income.' Wealthier taxpayers who can afford CPAs and tax lawyers scour the tax code for deductions, while the vast majority of taxpayers simply accept a lump sum 'default' deduction, known as the standard deduction, which is set by Congress. What are the most common deductions for those who itemize? Besides state and local taxes, common deductions are for mortgage interest on a primary residence or second home; charitable contributions; and out-of-pocket medical and dental expenses. All are subject to certain limitations. Why take the standard deduction instead of itemizing? If all your itemized deductions come out to a sum that is less than the standard deduction, then the obvious choice is to take the standard deduction. Taking the standard deduction is also less time-consuming. Advertisement How much is the standard deduction? The standard deduction was greatly increased — almost doubled — under the first Trump administration tax cut. For individual filers it went from $6,500 to $12,000; for joint returns, $13,000 to $24,000. The tax bill enacted this month bumps up the standard deduction for single filers to $15,750 and for joint filers $31,500. It's a huge increase, one that benefits the vast majority of taxpayers, including those with lower and moderate incomes and do not itemize. What percentage of taxpayers take the standard deduction? Taxpayers have overwhelmingly — and increasingly — opted for the standard deduction. Since the 2017 tax cut, the percentage of Americans who take the standard deduction has skyrocketed to more than 90 percent, compared to less than 70 percent as recently as 2020. How long has the SALT tax reduction been around? It dates back to the advent of the federal income tax more than a century ago. Initially, the SALT deduction was unlimited, meaning you could deduct from your taxable income every dollar you paid in state and local taxes, without a cap. How has SALT changed recently? The biggest change came when, at Trump's behest, a Republican-controlled Congress in 2017 capped it at $10,000 over the objections of many blue state lawmakers. What was the rationale for reducing the SALT deduction in 2017? Trump in his first administration successfully lobbied for one of the largest tax cuts in history, including much lower personal and corporate income tax rates, higher standard deductions, and a doubling of the child tax credit. (A tax credit is a dollar-for-dollar reduction in taxes owed, as opposed to a tax deduction, which is a reduction in taxable income.) The 2017 tax cuts, however, were not offset by spending reductions. One relatively minor way the 2017 law sought to pay for the tax cuts was by slashing the SALT deduction by 75 percent. Advertisement What were the politics behind the 2017 SALT reduction? The SALT deduction favors mostly blue states that vote reliably Democratic in presidential elections. The Trump administration apparently felt politically safe imposing a heavier tax burden on taxpayers in states Republicans consider unwinnable. So why did the Republican-controlled Congress this year increase the SALT cap to $40,000? This year's tax bill passed the House by the slimmest of margins, 215-214, with all Democrats opposed and two Republicans voting against it on the grounds it explodes the national debt. Before the vote, a few moderate Republicans from blue states lobbied for increasing the SALT deduction cap. Doing so was apparently the price bill proponents were willing to pay to keep those few crucial Republican votes in line. When does the higher SALT deduction go into effect? Immediately. Taxpayers can take advantage of it before next year's midterm elections, which affords a modest political advance to Republicans. (Some of the most serious — and unpopular — cuts to the social safety net won't go into effect until after the midterms, another possible political advantage for Republicans.) How long will the higher SALT deduction continue? It will increase by $1,000 each year through 2029, but then revert back to $10,000 in 2030, unless Congress says otherwise. Got a problem? Send your consumer issue to
Hypebeast
2 days ago
- Business
- Hypebeast
Tour The East London Office of an Architecture Communications Studio
In one of a few quiet spaces in East London's Shoreditch, architecture communications studioSALThas opened the doors to its new office space, which has been designed byTHISS Studio. With a brief to use 'as much reused material as possible', the design studio set about creating an open plan office that could transition into an event space or photography studio, with waste-saving solutions at its core. Expert-level scavenging was employed, with anything no longer needed being rehomed. The giant tables around which the space is centered are made from old steel catering tables, with the legs cut down to size and placed on casters. A worktop was crafted from leftover cork and white American oak trim – both saved from landfill. Rather than having a fixed meeting room, spaces are created with a huge linen curtain by London-based textile designerGeorgia Bosson, who sourced the end-of-roll fabric from an Irish mill. If not made from scratch from scrap material, furniture is second-hand, such as the bookcase shelving, which came via Gumtree and was once used in a butcher's. Colour is introduced across the columns and beams, which were coated in a rust-toned hue by sustainable paint brand Bleo. In a nod to the building's history, the floors have simply been sanded back and sealed with a matte varnish. 'We shared a commitment to minimising the use of virgin materials, and turning that ideal into reality required a collaborative, flexible design approach,' said Tamsin Hanke, Director at THISS Studio. 'The constraints actually became opportunities—introducing productive friction that sparked creativity and innovation, rather than assuming all materials were readily available.' 'Our new space is as much for our community as it is for SALT,' said Celeste Bolte, Founding Director at SALT. Head to the gallery above to take a look around.
Forbes
2 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Quirk Of ‘Big Beautiful Bill' Makes 45.5% Actual Top income-Tax Rate
A phaseout for high earners in the newly increased state and local tax (SALT) deduction essentially ... More introduces a new top tax rate. One of the defining features of the 'One Big Beautiful Bill' Act (OBBBA) is its significant increase in the limit on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction from $10,000 to $40,000. This high-profile tax benefit for reducing taxable income is available for those who itemize deductions on their federal tax returns instead of using the standard deduction. However, the higher cap on the SALT deduction comes with a catch: a phaseout for those with yearly income exceeding $500,000. While the income-tax rates for most of those taxpayers are 35% and 37% (the top two brackets), this phaseout of the SALT deduction can push your actual marginal tax rate to almost 46%. This significant jump has prompted financial advisors to suggest various strategies in response—including simply working less! This article explains the tax oddity around the increased SALT deduction and the approaches to it that advisors are recommending. SALT Deduction Review State and local tax (SALT) is an itemized deduction on Schedule A of your Form 1040 tax return. SALT includes property tax and state income tax. In a state without an income tax, you can deduct sales tax. You go with itemized deductions to reduce your taxable income when your itemized total (including mortgage interest and charitable donations) is greater than the standard deduction. Under the OBBBA, in 2025 the standard deduction is $15,750 for single filers and $31,500 for joint filers. In 2018, the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act (TCJA) imposed a limit of $10,000 on the total SALT deduction available to itemize, no matter how much more SALT you actually paid. This was unpopular, especially in high-tax states such as California and New York. To get enough votes from Republicans to pass in the House of Representatives, the OBBBA needed to include a meaningful increase in the cap on the SALT deduction. Accordingly, the OBBBA dramatically hiked the cap on SALT deductions to $40,000 per year from 2025 through 2029, with a 1% increase each year. The deduction limit is scheduled to return to $10,000 in 2030—expect to hear a lot about the 'sunset' of this provision as that time approaches. Alert: If you pay estimated taxes and are eligible for the higher SALT deduction, check with a tax professional (e.g. CPA, Enrolled Agent, tax lawyer) about any needed adjustments for the remaining quarterly payments of 2025. This is one tax-law change I personally benefit from. I live in a town in Massachusetts with high property taxes that pay for its excellent public schools and local government services. Additionally, the state income-tax rate is 5%. An extra 4% state tax applies to income of $1 million or more (not my worry). The higher limit on the SALT deduction also makes up for my personal frustration with the OBBBA for permanently ending the tax-free employer reimbursement of up to $20 per month for bike commuting. That annoyed me because I bike to work year-round, including in the harsh New England winter, as part of my training for the Pan Massachusetts Challenge (PMC), a yearly fundraising event for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Higher SALT Cap Phases Down As I explain in my recent article 'Big Beautiful Bill' Affects Tax Planning For Stock Options And RSUs, phaseouts are the laser gun of the tax code. They vaporize taxpayer-favorable provisions to meet federal budget rules, while also adding complexity to the tax code. The OBBBA imposes a phaseout—called a 'phasedown' in the tax law—on the new additional SALT deduction based on your income: from $40,000 down to the base $10,000 SALT deduction. For taxpayers with modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) above $500,000, the additional deduction phases out at 30% of every dollar over that threshold and completely phases out at $600,000 of MAGI. At that point, you are left with just the underlying $10,000 SALT deduction that is not part of the phasedown. Because it takes away potential deductions from your taxable income, the phaseout increases your true marginal tax rate—how much in taxes you are really paying for each additional dollar in income. Holistiplan, which provides a tax-planning platform with tools for advisors, calculated this tax increase for me. The 2025 numbers below are for both single taxpayers and joint filers, as the maximum SALT deduction and the income point where the phasedown starts are the same for both (a clear example of the 'marriage penalty' in the tax code). Table provided by Holistiplan for article Quirk Of 'Big Beautiful Bill' Makes 45.5% ... More Actual Top Tax Rate For High-Income Taxpayers 'The phasedown of the SALT deduction introduces a new 'marginal' bracket for those impacted,' observes Ben Birken, Vice President for Subscriber Support & Adoption at Holistiplan. 'In fact, the tax code is packed with these non-published marginal brackets for things like the phaseout of the child tax credit, taxation of Social Security, when capital gains shift from being taxed at 0% to 15%, and the phaseout of the Qualified Business Income (QBI) deduction.' In general, comments Birken, 'you could say the tax code is a vast ocean littered with unseen tax torpedoes, of which the OBBBA adds even more.' What Advisors Are Telling Clients Financial and tax advisors are viewing the span of $500,000 to $600,000 in adjusted gross income (AGI), and the income range approaching it, as critical areas to watch for their clients. The issue was concisely expressed by Jeff Levine, a tax advisor and the Chief Planning Officer with Focus Partners in St. Louis, Missouri, during a recent webinar on the OBBBA: 'As you go from $500,000 of AGI to $600,000 of AGI, if you were getting your full $40,000 deduction for SALT taxes and you go down to $10,000, you're effectively paying taxes on not $100,000 more of income but on $130,000 more: the $100,000 of income you actually received plus the $30,000 of deductions that you lost.' When you add in any state and local taxes to that income, he pointed out, you may end up keeping just half of the money you made. Advisors recommend many planning ideas to try to hold your income below the phaseout zone. These include maximizing contributions to qualified retirement plans, such as a 401(k) or IRA; putting salary or bonuses into any nonqualified deferred compensation plan that's available; exploring eligibility for other retirement or pension plans that defer income; and making bigger charitable donations (directly or to a DAF). Plus, where possible, you want to evaluate whether to avoid triggering more income, such as with Roth IRA conversions, nonqualified stock option exercises, and asset sales. Levine urged advisors that 'if your client is at $600,000 of income, you basically want to do anything you can, perhaps, to lower their AGI, because it's that meaningful.' He even (only half-jokingly) suggested to advisors that they may turn to some of their more workaholic clients and say: 'You're working your tail off, running around doing all your work, working all this overtime, or trying to max out your bonuses. Why don't you just take it a little bit easier this year? Instead of making $600,000 you'll make $500,000, but you'll get back all this time in your life, and it's only net-net going to cost you $50,000 after the taxes.'
Chicago Tribune
3 days ago
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
How one tax change in Trump's ‘big beautiful bill' that even Gov. JB Pritzker supports will work
Gov. JB Pritzker and his fellow Democrats have been unrelenting in their criticisms of the tax and spending plan President Donald Trump signed July 4. But along with much-lambasted cuts to Medicaid, food assistance and education, the budget reconciliation plan Republicans pushed through Congress this summer includes a tax change that Democrats as well as some Republicans in high-tax blue states have backed for years. The measure temporarily raises the limit on how much of their state and local tax bills taxpayers can deduct when filing their federal income tax returns. Boosting the cap on the so-called SALT deduction to $40,000, from the previous $10,000, and extending its expiration date for five years will largely benefit those at the upper end of the income scale. But it's also seen as especially beneficial in states such as Illinois that have high property taxes. 'I think raising it is a good thing for the state of Illinois, and I think more needs to be done to kind of alleviate the pain that the Trump administration is visiting on states across the country,' Pritzker said last week at an unrelated event in Chicago. 'This is one way in which pain can be alleviated. So it's a positive thing overall. Large states, highly populous states like ours, tend to benefit from the SALT deduction, so whatever is good for the state of Illinois, I'm for.' Supporting the higher limit puts Democrats, who've decried the Republican plan as a boon for the rich, in an awkward position since it largely affects high earners. Yet it can also be good politics for those representing districts that span some of Chicago's wealthier neighborhoods and suburban communities — areas that have become increasingly Democratic in recent decades. The overall impact of the change, particularly for middle- and upper-middle-income homeowners in the city and suburbs, remains to be seen, however. Trump's new tax package leaves in place a higher standard deduction that was enacted alongside the original $10,000 SALT cap as part of his 2017 tax cuts. The higher standard deduction — $31,500 for married couples on 2025 taxes that will be filed next spring — makes it less likely households with property tax bills in the low five figures would choose to itemize on their federal returns and claim the SALT deduction. Because of that and other intricacies of the tax code, the effect of the change on individual tax bills in Illinois is likely to be very narrow, said Ralph Martire, executive director of the Chicago-based Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, a nonpartisan think tank. According to his group's analysis of the 2017 change, 'only 11 of the 1,229 ZIP codes in Illinois saw a majority of their taxpayers pay higher federal income taxes under the (SALT deduction) cap of $10,000,' Martire said. And as might be expected, those ZIP codes are concentrated in affluent suburbs such as Hinsdale and Wayne in DuPage County, Lake Forest, Barrington, Highland Park and Deerfield in Lake County, and Glencoe, Kenilworth, Winnetka, Wilmette and Western Springs in Cook County. 'There are communities that disproportionately impacts … and they are communities of wealth, for the most part,' Martire said. Still, Martire said, the previous cap of $10,000 likely put the squeeze on some upper-middle income families — think those earning around $250,000 per year, with a five-figure annual property tax bill and hopes of sending their kids to college without the help of need-based financial aid. 'You're upper-income … at that level, but you're not living entirely high on the hog,' Martire said. 'The truth of the matter is, from a policy standpoint, if you're going to have a cap, the cap should be relatively high, and maybe even higher than $40,000, so that those paying a higher overall tax bill are those at the very top of the scale,' he added. Taxpayers have been able to deduct what they pay to state and local governments since the permanent federal income tax was adopted in 1913. While policymakers have been chipping away at the deduction for decades, the $10,000 cap instituted in Trump's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was the most stringent restriction to date, though it didn't meet the Trump administration's and congressional Republicans' original goal of eliminating the deduction entirely. Before the 2017 change, taxpayers, with a few exceptions, could deduct from their federal taxes the full amount they paid in local property taxes as well as either state income or sales taxes. Pritzker last week said the cap 'never should have been put in place in the first place.' Republicans who pushed for eliminating or at least limiting the deduction argued that the policy was a federal tax giveaway to Democratic-led states that had made political decisions to impose higher levies on their residents. Many Democrats in states such as New York, California and Illinois opposed the cap, arguing that their residents already send a greater share of tax dollars to Washington than their states receive back and that limiting the deduction would result in some people being taxed twice on the same income. The new cap became a contentious issue in some congressional races in the 2018 midterm election, particularly in suburban districts. U.S. Rep. Sean Casten of Downers Grove, for instance, campaigned heavily on the issue in his successful bid to unseat GOP Rep. Peter Roskam, a six-term incumbent from Wheaton who helped write the legislation creating the $10,000 cap. When Democrats took control of the House in 2019, they passed legislation that would have eliminated the cap. The measure was not taken up in the Republican-led Senate, though support for the limit didn't break cleanly along party lines. After Democrats took control of the Senate in 2021 with President Joe Biden in the White House, efforts to address the cap again faltered, despite efforts by Pritzker and other Democratic governors who wrote Biden a letter that spring calling for it to be eliminated. 'Like so many of President Trump's efforts, capping SALT deductions was based on politics, not logic or good government,' the letter said. 'This assault disproportionately targeted Democratic-run states, increasing taxes on hardworking families,' the governors said. Eventually, however, the issue was left by the wayside as the Biden administration worked to cobble together support for his scaled-down domestic policy agenda, in large part because eliminating the cap would have cost the federal government roughly $100 billion in lost revenue annually. Once Republicans took back control of Congress and the White House in the 2024 election, the GOP was forced to grapple with the issue as Trump and his supporters worked to push through his sweeping One Big Beautiful Bill Act. With few votes to spare thanks to a razor-thin majority and unified Democratic opposition to the overall package, several House Republicans from Democratic-led states, though none of Illinois' three GOP members, threatened to withhold their support if a higher limit for the state and local tax deduction wasn't included. Without any action from Congress, the cap would have expired completely at the end of the year. In the end, Trump signed a measure that raised the cap to $40,000 for the current year, with a 1% annual increase through 2029. In 2030, the cap will drop back to $10,000, unless Congress takes further action. The higher cap phases out for higher-income individuals, beginning with those earning more than $500,000 but doesn't drop below the $10,000 level for any taxpayer who claims the deduction. Despite the effort to scale back the cap for the highest earners, only about 7% of tax filers will see a benefit from the change, according to estimates from the Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, research associate Nikhita Airi said. Of the overall tax savings, nearly 85% will go to the top 20% of earners, with more than half going to those in the top 10%. 'It's a deduction with a pretty clear constituency, and that kind of explains why it's been so politically durable and what ended up happening within the reconciliation bill,' Airi said. Even though some Illinois Democrats have been pushing for the cap on the deduction to be raised, they weren't in a celebratory mood when Republicans did so as part of their massive $3.4 trillion package. 'If I served you a big bowl of poison and there's a Skittle in it, you shouldn't eat the Skittle,' Casten, the Downers Grove Democrat, said at a recent forum hosted by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois.
Geek Wire
3 days ago
- Business
- Geek Wire
In AI we trust?
A recent study by Stanford University's Social and Language Technologies Lab (SALT) found that 45% of workers don't trust the accuracy, capability, or reliability of AI systems. That trust gap reflects a deeper concern about how AI behaves when the stakes are high, especially in business-critical environments. Hallucinations in AI may be acceptable when the stakes are low, like drafting a tweet or generating creative ideas, where errors are easily caught and carry little consequence. But in the enterprise, where AI agents are expected to support high-stakes decisions, power workflows, and engage directly with customers, the tolerance for error disappears. True enterprise-grade reliability demands more: consistency, predictability, and rigorous alignment with real-world context, because even small mistakes can have big consequences. This challenge is referred to as 'jagged intelligence,' where AI systems continue to shatter performance records on increasingly complex benchmarks, while sporadically struggling with simpler tasks that most humans find intuitive and can reliably solve. For example, a model might be able to defeat a chess grandmaster that is unable to complete a simple child's puzzle. This mismatch between brilliance and brittleness underscores why enterprise AI demands more than general LLM intelligence alone; it requires contextual grounding, rigorous testing, and continuous fine-tuning. That's why at Salesforce, we believe the future of AI in business depends on achieving what we call Enterprise General Intelligence (EGI) – a new framework for enterprise-grade AI systems that are not only highly capable but also consistently reliable across complex, real-world scenarios. In an EGI environment, AI agents work alongside humans, integrated into enterprise systems and governed by strict rules that limit what actions they can take. To achieve this, we're implementing a clear, repeatable three-step framework – synthesize, measure, and train – and applying this to every enterprise-grade use case. A Three-Step Framework for Building Trust Building AI agents within the enterprise demands a disciplined process that grounds models in business-contextualized data, measures performance against real-world benchmarks, and continuously fine-tunes agents to maintain accuracy, consistency, and safety. Synthesize: Building trustworthy agents starts with safe, realistic testing environments. That means using AI-generated synthetic data that closely resembles real inputs, applying the same business logic and objectives used in human workflows, and running agents in secure, isolated sandboxes. By simulating real-world conditions without exposing production systems or sensitive data, teams can generate high-fidelity feedback. This method is called 'reinforcement learning' and is a critical foundation for developing enterprise-ready AI agents. Building trustworthy agents starts with safe, realistic testing environments. That means using AI-generated synthetic data that closely resembles real inputs, applying the same business logic and objectives used in human workflows, and running agents in secure, isolated sandboxes. By simulating real-world conditions without exposing production systems or sensitive data, teams can generate high-fidelity feedback. This method is called 'reinforcement learning' and is a critical foundation for developing enterprise-ready AI agents. Measure: Reliable agents require clear, consistent benchmarks. Measuring performance isn't just about tracking accuracy, it's about defining what each specific use case requires. The level of precision needed varies: An agent offering product recommendations may tolerate a wider margin of error than one evaluating loan applications or diagnosing system failures. By establishing tailored benchmarks such as Salesforce's initial LLM benchmark for CRM use cases, and acceptable performance thresholds, teams can evaluate agent output in context and iterate with purpose, ensuring the agent is fit for its intended role before it ever reaches production. LLM benchmark Train: Reliability isn't achieved in a single pass — it's the result of continuous refinement. Agents must be trained, tested, and retrained in a constant feedback loop. That means generating fresh data, running real-world scenarios, measuring outcomes, and using those insights to improve performance. Because agent behavior can vary across runs, this iterative process is essential for building stability over time. Only through repeated training and tuning can agents reach the level of consistency and accuracy required for enterprise use. Turning AI Agents Into Reliable Enterprise Partners Building AI agents for the enterprise is much more than simply deploying an LLM for business-critical tasks. Salesforce AI Research's latest research shows that generic LLM agents successfully complete only 58% of simple tasks and barely more than a third of more complex ones. Truly effective EGI agents that are trustworthy in high-stakes business scenarios require far more than an off-the-shelf DIY LLM plug-in. They demand a rigorous, platform-driven approach that grounds models in business-specific context, enforces governance, and continuously measures and fine-tunes performance. The AI we deploy in Agentforce is built differently. Agentforce doesn't run by simply plugging into an LLM. The agents are grounded in business-specific context through Data Cloud, made trustworthy by our enterprise-grade Trust Layer, and designed for reliability through continuous evaluation and optimization using the Testing Center. This platform-driven approach ensures that agents are not only intelligent, but consistently enterprise-ready. As businesses evolve toward a future where specialized AI agents collaborate dynamically in teams, complexity increases exponentially. That's why leveraging frameworks that synthesize, evaluate, and train agents before deployment is critical. This new framework builds the trust needed to elevate AI from a promising technology into a reliable enterprise partner that drives meaningful business outcomes.
