Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney proposed to cap itemized deductions at $17,000.
The Romney campaign claims that the cap is not intended to apply to the income exclusion allowed for employer-provider health care benefits.
In an interview with Fox31 television news, Romney suggested deductions for health care, mortgage insurance and charitable contributions would be among the items that would be subjected to the $17,000 cap.
This cap is intended to help offset the cost of a broad 20 percent cut in current tax rates. The plan would not apply to tax breaks for employer-provided health benefits because they are an exclusion from income, not a deduction.
Overall, Romney’s tax reform plan is designed to cut taxes on the middle class while also pursuing revenue and distributional neutrality in reforming the tax code.
The proposal of the $17,000 cap is only one example among a range of policy options that Romney will consider to achieve his goals. Most of the attention on Romney is from his comments on his willingness to curtail the value of deductions for home mortgage interest and charitable contributions.
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