The problem is that the scenario I laid out will play our across all fifty states; while more people may be hurt by the SALT limitation in the six states you describe, people in all 50 states have lost their exemptions - therefore more of their income is taxable, and it is a question as to whether or not the increased standard deduction and/or child tax credit offsets the loss of those exemptions.
Again, I wasn’t hurt by the SALT cap, but by the loss of exemptions - and I suspect many more people are going to be furious when they realize the “raise” they received last February was a hoax - they’ll pay that back and more.
I file quarterly tax payments instead of withholding payroll income, and it will be interesting to see how my business deductions line up against the personal exemption. I'm fortunate that I still had some sizable business expenses from 2017 that I could carry over to 2018, but I suspect that it would be wise to bump up my quarterly estimates for 2019.
Hey my husband is in the tax profession and didn’t realise the loss of personal exemptions until I told him about it last year. People were focusing on SALT. They will find out very soon how personal exemption loss hurts them.
What difference does it make how much of your income is taxable? What really matters is the tax you pay. I would rather have more taxable income if it means a lower tax liability, which is exactly the case for the new law, at least for those who don’t itemize and are not in the 25% and higher tax brackets. Under the old law, a married couple with two kids could exempt $28,900 in income (12,700 std deduction plus 4x4050 for exemptions). This year that drops to $24,000. Assuming the same income overall, they have $4900 more in taxable income. Assuming a 15% marginal rate that would be an additional $735 in taxes. The increased child tax credit saves them $2000 though more than offsetting that increase.