The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Lamont, Tong vow to fight U.S. tax law’s impact on state
If elected governor, Democrat Ned Lamont on Wednesday said he would fight a new federal tax law that will hurt homeowners paying more than $10,000 in state and local taxes.
Appearing in East Hartford Town Hall with other Democrats, Lamont linked President Donald Trump’s budget with Republican candidate for governor Bob Stefanowski, of Madison, saying Trump’s plan forces the federal budget into a $800 billion increase in the federal deficit.
“It’s the middle class, the working class that gets hammered by a tax bill like this,” Lamont said, noting tax deductions go back to the tenure of another Republican president: Abraham Lincoln. “You think about this Trump tax bill. It reminds me a little of the (proposed) Stefanowski elimination of the state income tax. We cannot borrow in this state. We must pay our bills.”
State Rep. William Tong, of Stamford, the Democratic candidate for attorney general, echoed those sentiments.
“If you’re a Connecticut taxpayer, the president of the United States and his administration have declared war on you and your family,” Tong said.
Tong said the tax bill passed by the Republicancontrolled Congress and signed into law by Trump amounts to the largest tax increase in state history: $2.8 billion. Connecticut taxpayers lost $10.3 billion in deductions under the law, which capped state and local tax deductions at $10,000. Connecticut has joined New York, Maryland, New Jersey and Massachusetts in suing the Trump administration on the issue.
But Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has ruled against two tactics that some states, including Connecticut, have adopted to help their residents avoid tax increases: allowing residents to pay property tax bills by making charitable contributions; and letting limited-liability corporations receive credits for state and local taxes.
Stefanowski disagreed with Lamont’s premise.
“Ned concentrating on state and local deductions ignores the root of the problem, which is that he and Dan Malloy have supported tax increase after tax increase,” said Kendall Marr, Stefanowski’s spokesman. “Stefanowski wants to completely eliminate the state income tax over the next eight years, which would actually solve the problem rather than mask it, as Ned Lamont seeks to do.”