WASHINGTON — The top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday shot down Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plea to help New York on taxes even before he made it.
Cuomo was scheduled to meet with President Trump at the White House this afternoon to ask for a revision to the federal tax code, which limits state and local deductions (SALT) to $10,000 on federal returns.
But a spokesman for Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told The Post that Cuomo’s wasting his time.
“The Senate Finance Committee won’t be revisiting the SALT deduction reforms made in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act …,” said the spokesman.
“It’s ironic that the same Democrats who criticized the Tax Cuts and Jobs Acts for supposedly benefiting only the wealthy are now advocating for a change to the law that would primarily benefit the wealthy.”
The Grassley aide called the SALT deduction a “federal subsidy for states to raise taxes on their [residents] without political consequences.”
Cuomo himself had a hard time explaining why Trump should help New York, which has many wealthy taxpayers who’ll be hurt by the federal tax code.
“This is a problem for him,” Cuomo argued on WNYC radio.
“He’s going to need that Democratic Congress to get anything passed.”
Cuomo would need support from Senate Republicans to amend the federal tax system — and Grassley quickly quashed that hope.
“The answer to the problem is for states to lower their taxes instead of insisting that taxpayers from lower-tax states subsidize their profligate spending,” Grassley’s spokesman said.