House to vote on permanent sales tax deduction
WASHINGTON — The House is expected to vote next week on a bill that would make permanent the deduction for state and local sales taxes, advancing a tax break prized by residents of Nevada and a handful of other states.
The State and Local Sales Tax Fairness Act was listed among the bills that Republican leaders planned to bring to the House floor. It is part is a GOP messaging blitz tied to the April 15 tax filing deadline.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Thursday in a memo to fellow Republicans that he put 20 bills on the schedule “aimed at getting the government off the backs of taxpayers and reforming the institutions that serve them.”
Among others set for votes are an updated version of the Taxpayer Bills of Rights, and bills aimed at addressing GOP allegations that conservative groups seeking nonprofit tax status were targeted for extra scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service.
Lawmakers from Nevada and a half dozen other states have tried to write the sales tax deduction into permanent law. The tax break now must be renewed every year or two, with Congress often waiting until the last minute to extend it.
“Making permanent the state and local sales tax deduction will give Nevada families and businesses certainty over their tax rates and will help sustain our continued economic recovery,” said Rep. Joe Heck, R-Nev., one of 43 co-sponsors.
Current law gives taxpayers the choice on their federal return to deduct either the state income tax they pay or their sales taxes. In Nevada and other states that have no state income tax the choice is easy.
Besides Nevada, the sales tax break is widely used by residents of Wyoming, South Dakota, Washington, Texas, Florida and Tennessee.
In 2012, the most recent year for numbers from the IRS, 280,000 Nevadans claimed the sales tax deduction — 22 percent of taxpayers in the state.
