#20 Daily Financial News Round Up - Nov 20,2021
What news caught my attention?
A small loophole in the $2 trillion bills is most likely to benefit high-income earners in the tri-state area as well as California. In 2017, Republicans passed a law restricting state and local tax deductions (SALT) to $10,000. Now, the new bill proposes to raise the SALT deductions to $80,000. The democrats disagree as this raise directly contradicts some democrats promise of increasing taxes on the wealthy.
Nebraska has the lowest unemployment rate ever in the United States with 1.9% rate.
2021 Covid-19 deaths surpass the number of 2020 covid deaths. Total covid death poll is greater than 700,000. Covid-19 continues to be a cause for concern.
The assets that need to be abandoned/written off to pursue climate change objectives is valued at $1 trillion.
My Takeaways:
The argument favouring increasing the SALT deduction limit is that the hard cap at $10,000 limits the states to increase their tax rates to serve their constituents. An increase in the deduction limit to $80,000 will provide tax relief for the high-income households, which would give some room for these states to increase their tax rates. The argument against the limit increase is that without an income limit, an $80,000 tax-deduction cap will benefit the highest-income households, saving around $25,900 more in taxes for these households than the current law. According to the Tax Policy Centre, the recipients of this increased limit will primarily be the top 1% of households.
COVID-19 continues to be dangerous and mask mandate needs to be taken seriously.