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15 July
SALT tax deduction: Here’s why a red-wave election could threaten taxpayer relief
Former president and current Republican candidate Donald Trump signed the SALT deduction cap into law in 2017. REBECCA DROKE/AFP via Getty Images

The attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on Saturday has increased the chances of a so-called red-wave election in November, analysts say, potentially giving Republicans the ability to make sweeping changes to the tax code in 2025.

“Before Saturday’s shooting, we viewed Donald Trump as the favorite to win the November election,” Brian Gardner, chief Washington policy strategist at Stifel, wrote in a Monday client note. “In the aftermath of this weekend’s events, we are more confident in this view.”

Gardner argued that the failed attempt would galvanize Trump supporters and give the former president a “boost” with independent and undecided voters out of “sympathy.”

Although Trump has led most polls in battleground states for some time, Democrats had reason to hope they could win at least one chamber of Congress, enabling them to block Republican legislation.

A lasting enthusiasm boost for Trump, however, could significantly benefit downballot Republicans, leading to a red-wave election that could win the GOP upwards of 57 Senate seats and more than 230 seats in the House of Representatives, according to Henrietta Treyz, director of economic policy at Veda Partners.

Such a scenario would significantly strengthen the hand of Republican leadership in both chambers and enable them to overcome internal divisions that have hampered the GOP for years.

“Immediately, higher majority margins would make passing a 2025 tax bill quite a bit easier,” Treyz wrote in a Monday note to clients.

For instance, that could enable the party to overcome objections from its members in high-tax states like New York over the $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions, which was one of the main tools used in the 2017 tax reform to pay for tax cuts for individuals, corporations and small businesses.

Prior to the 2017 reform, the SALT deduction cost the federal government tens of billions of dollars a year, and the benefits were largely realized by wealthier taxpayers.

An analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimated that 96% of the benefits of a repeal of the SALT cap would go to taxpayers in the top 20% of the income spectrum.

A red-wave election could give House Speaker Mike Johnson the ability to “maneuver around the SALT coalition in his congress,” Treyz wrote, and to use the $1.2 trillion that the SALT cap raises in revenue to extend the individual tax cuts enacted in 2017 or further reduce the corporate tax rate from 21% to as low as 18%.

U.S. equity SPX and fixed-income BX:TMUBMUSD10Y markets on Monday reflected a growing belief in a Trump victory, with stocks and bonds rallying in anticipation of higher budget deficits and new tariffs potentially boosting inflation, Will Compernolle, macroeconomic strategist at HFN, said in a Monday note.

Still, there’s reason to be skeptical that Saturday’s events will have a lasting impact on the public’s perception of Trump and his candidacy.

Thierry Wizman, global FX and rates strategist at Macquarie, pointed out in a Monday research note that the approval boost Ronald Reagan saw following a 1981 failed assassination attempt was fleeting, and after three months his numbers were back to where they had been before the shooting.

“Even if the popularity boost gets Trump into the White House,” he wrote, “it may not last long enough … to implement his agenda.”