Too Much SALT? The Nuanced Impact of the State and Local Tax Deduction Cap on Pass-Through Business Taxpayers

Perhaps the most controversial provision of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 is the state and local tax deduction limitation (or SALT cap), partic¬ularly with respect to how the cap impacts pass-through entities in high-tax states. This particular provision of the tax law has been criticized by opponents as deliberately punitive to small businesses in blue states, while proponents maintain that eliminating the SALT cap would primar¬ily benefit high income taxpayers. Politicians from blue states have called for the repeal of the SALT cap, and some states have enacted various workarounds with questionable prospects of success. Still, many taxpay¬ers will not benefit from a SALT deduction irrespective of the SALT cap, particularly taxpayers that either take the standard deduction or are subject to the alternative minimum tax (AMT). We examine the developing law around the SALT cap and provide descriptive empirical evidence of its disparate impact on closely held business taxpayers. Consistent with prior economics literature, we find that the impact is indeed most pro¬nounced among high-income taxpayers in blue states. However, we note that the impact is substantially less than the furor over the limitation would suggest because many high-income taxpayers are subject to the AMT and so are not significantly affected by the limitation. These findings suggest two underemphasized points. First, the imposition of the SALT cap was not the drastic financial hit to blue state taxpayers that policy makers and commentators have suggested. Second, with a new adminis¬tration that favors eliminating the SALT cap, Congress could consider whether the repeal of the cap alone is enough because further changes would be needed to return the SALT deduction to its earlier prominence

Margarita de Sossa, Sixteenth-Century Puebla de los Ángeles, New Spain (Mexico)

Margarita de Sossa’s freedom journey was defiant and entrepreneurial. In her early twenties, still enslaved in Portugal, she took possession of her body; after refusing to endure her owner’s sexual demands, he sold her, and she was transported to Mexico. There, she purchased her freedom with money earned as a healer and then conducted an enviable business as an innkeeper. Sossa’s biography provides striking insights into how she conceptualized freedom in terms that included – but was not limited to – legal manumission. Her transatlantic biography offers a rare insight into the life of a free black woman (and former slave) in late sixteenth-century Puebla, who sought to establish various degrees of freedom for herself. Whether she was refusing to acquiesce to an abusive owner, embracing entrepreneurship, marrying, purchasing her own slave property, or later using the courts to petition for divorce. Sossa continued to advocate on her own behalf. Her biography shows that obtaining legal manumission was not always equivalent to independence and autonomy, particularly if married to an abusive husband, or if financial successes inspired the envy of neighbors

A letter from Miles Romney, publisher of the Western News of Hamilton, MT to Congressman Arnold Olsen, concerning the Magruder controversy.

This letter comes from Romney's response to Secretary Freeman's decisions as of 1965 regarding the status of the Magruder Corridor. Romney is very careful not to criticize Freeman directly, but states that he believes that Freeman's beliefs regarding the best use of the Corridor are founded on misinformation provided by lobbies who wish to see the area turned into a source of timber and nothing more. Romeny rebuts this position with a combination of scientific evidence and his own personal reminiscences of growing up in the area

Brigham Young Winter Home and Office, 67 West 200 North; Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Exterior, street (main) elevation, May 1971.Adobe, Plaster, Local roc

Brigham Young Winter Home and Office, 67 West 200 North; Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Exterior, office building, May 1971.Adobe, Plaster, Local roc

Brigham Young Winter Home and Office, 67 West 200 North; Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Exterior, street (main) facade, gate, May 1971.Adobe, Plaster, Local roc

Brigham Young Winter Home and Office, 67 West 200 North; Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Exterior, street (main) facade, April 1971.Adobe, Plaster, Local roc