Senate GOP unveils its tax plan

Bill spares mortgage interest, but repeals state deduction

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans revealed details of their sweeping tax legislation yesterday, including a one-year delay in plans for a major corporate tax cut despite strident opposition from the White House and others in their own party.

Their bill would leave the prized mortgage interest deduction untouched for homeowners in a concession to the powerful real estate lobby, but would ignore a House compromise on the hot-button issue of state and local tax deductions.

On the other side of the Capitol, the House Ways and Means Committee approved its own version of the legislation on a partyline 24-16 vote.

Yet as the Senate Finance Committee unveiled its bill, stark differences emerged with the version approved by the House tax-writing committee.

The Senate bill would fully repeal the state and local deduction claimed by many taxpayers, an idea that has drawn vigorous opposition from House Republicans in New York and

As the Senate Finance Committee unveiled its bill, stark differences emerged with the version approved by the House tax-writing committee.

New Jersey and resulted in a compromise in the House version of the bill that would allow property taxes to be deducted up to $10,000.

On the other hand, the House bill would lower the cap on the mortgage interest deduction, an idea that caused intense blowback from the real estate lobby, but the Senate tax measure would leave it unchanged. That means homebuyers would continue to be able to deduct interest payments on loans of up to $1 million as permitted under current law; the House bill would reduce the limit to $500,000 for new home purchases

The feverish efforts by Republicans in both chambers are aimed at fulfilling a self-imposed deadline to get legislation out of the House and Senate before Thanksgiving, so the period between then and Christmas can be devoted to reconciling the two versions.