New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced today that the state of New York, joined by the states of Connecticut, New Jersey and Maryland, have instituted a lawsuit against the federal government in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, seeking to strike the $10,000 cap imposed on the state and local tax (“SALT”) itemized deduction by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (“TCJA”) as unconstitutional.
The lawsuit, which specifically names Steven Mnuchin, U.S. Treasury Secretary and David Kautter, Acting Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, as defendants, asserts that the SALT cap (previously discussed in an earlier blog post) was specifically enacted by the federal government to target New York and similarly situated states, that it interferes with a state’s right to make its own fiscal decisions, and that it disproportionately adversely impacts taxpayers in those states.
Larry J. Brant
Editor
Larry J. Brant is a Shareholder and the Chair of the Tax & Benefits practice group at Foster Garvey, a law firm based out of the Pacific Northwest, with offices in Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; Washington, D.C.; New York, New York, Spokane, Washington; and Tulsa, Oklahoma. Mr. Brant is licensed to practice in Oregon and Washington. His practice focuses on tax, tax controversy and business transactions. Mr. Brant is a past Chair of the Oregon State Bar Taxation Section. He was the long-term Chair of the Oregon Tax Institute, and is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Portland Tax Forum. Mr. Brant has served as an adjunct professor, teaching corporate taxation, at Northwestern School of Law, Lewis and Clark College. He is a frequent lecturer at local, regional and national tax and business conferences for CPAs and attorneys. Mr. Brant is an Expert Contributor to Thomson Reuters Checkpoint Catalyst. He is a Fellow in the American College of Tax Counsel. Mr. Brant publishes articles on numerous income tax issues, including Taxation of S corporations, Taxation of C corporations, Reasonable Compensation, Circular 230, Worker Classification, IRC Section 1031 Exchanges, Choice of Entity, Entity Tax Classification, and State and Local Taxation. Since 2019, he has been a multiple-time honoree of the JD Supra Readers’ Choice Awards for Tax, recognizing him as a Top Author for thought leadership and reader engagement on its platform. Mr. Brant was the 2015 Recipient of the Oregon State Bar Tax Section Award of Merit.


