Corporations to keep tax break lost by millions of Americans

Washington — Millions of Americans would lose a prized tax break under President Donald Trump’s sweeping revamp of the tax code, but corporations would get to keep it.

The Republican proposal would eliminate the federal deduction for state and local taxes, a widely popular break used by some 44 million Americans, especially in high-tax, Democratic-leaning states like New York, New Jersey, California and Illinois. But corporations, which pay billions in local property levies and state income taxes, wouldn’t be affected.

Republicans are determined to overhaul the nation’s tax system by year’s end, offering a plan that lowers the corporate tax rate from 36 percent to 20 percent and reduces the number of tax brackets. Trump and the GOP cast the plan as a boon to the middle class.

Meeting at the White House on Wednesday with members of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, Trump said, “this is a once-in-alifetime opportunity, in my opinion.”

Democratic members of the committee remained united in opposition to the current plan, said Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat. He said their message to the president was: “You fix it (the tax system) with real tax relief that helps the middle class. You don’t give tax cuts to people like him (Trump).”

Toward the end of the meeting, Trump issued a thinly-veiled threat to Democratic senators, according to Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio. Most of the Democratic members of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee who were invited are up for re-election next year in states Trump won in 2016. Brown is among them.

Brown said Trump told them, “I couldn’t imagine being a Democrat and running in 2018 having voted against” the GOP tax legislation.

“You fix it (the tax system) with real tax relief that helps the middle class. You don’t give tax cuts to people like him (Trump).” SEN. RON WYDEN, SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE’S TOP DEMOCRAT