Sales tax deduction request filed

In an annual exercise, Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray have joined a group asking Congress to make permanent the sales tax deduction for residents of states that don’t have an income tax.

As usual, the request makes for some strange bedfellows for the two Washington Democrats, because some states without an income tax are very red, like Texas, but they all share an aversion to a state income tax. Congress has granted the deduction on an annual or biannual basis for more than a decade, so making it permanent might seem logical.

But this is Congress, so logic has relatively little to do with it. The sales tax deduction is usually wrapped in with other tax breaks and used as a bargaining chip on other legislation late in the year. Without a request for a permanent deduction, it might get left out of the bargaining for the temporary one.

One of these years, maybe — just maybe — Congress will actually accomplish something like major tax reform and slip the permanent deduction in. We expect that to happen right it after finds a leprechaun at the end of a rainbow, grabs his pot of gold and hauls it back to the Capitol on a unicorn.