Newsday letters to the editor for Friday, Nov. 10, 2017

Americans who care for family members with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias have much at stake depending on how the current tax proposal treats caregivers [“GOP shakes up taxes,” News, Nov. 3].

Currently, there are just a few tax options for caregivers. Some can deduct a portion of medical care expenses or claim a credit for care supports; but qualifying for these credits and deductions is difficult for many. Even those who are able to take the deductions find the amount of tax savings is minuscule compared with the actual costs involved.

Studies say about 40 million Americans are providing 37 billion hours of care worth an estimated $470 billion to their parents, spouses, partners and other adult loved ones. This amount of uncompensated care surpasses total Medicaid spending in 2013, which was $449 billion. In addition, out-of-pocket costs for family and informal caregivers are astronomical, with family caregivers, on average, spending roughly $7,000 per year.

Tax reform actually affords those in Congress an opportunity to recognize these financial costs placed on family and other informal caregivers. These burdens can and must be addressed as the crisis of Alzheimer’s only grows.

Charles J. Fuschillo Jr., Merrick

Editor’s note: The writer is president and chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America.

As a longtime supporter of President Donald Trump, I will be voting for Democrats next year if this anti-middle class GOP tax bill gets passed.

Trump should not let his desperation to get something done about his campaign promises make him agree to the GOP tax proposals. Based on what I’ve read, these tax proposals use the discredited trickle-down theory to try to motivate large corporations to create jobs in the United States.

This didn’t work for the Reagan or the Bush administrations. It just gave wealthy people more money to send outside of the country.

Don’t say that it’s different this time. It’s never different when it comes to big campaign donors like corporations and billionaires.

Tom Colangelo, Dix Hills

As a registered Republican who voted accordingly last November, I am not happy with the GOP plan for tax revision. I’m a disabled veteran, and my property tax is within the proposed $10,000 cap proposed by the House of Representatives. However, I would lose my state income tax deduction and the medical deduction that was a large part of my family’s joint return.

Newsday’s article says Long Islanders pay more in property and state income taxes than any other region in the country. This was tolerable as long as the taxpaying citizens of the other 49 states were underwriting our federal taxes, allowing our vote-hungry politicians to curry favor with teachers, police and public service unions with lucrative contracts and pensions, which all went into the bottom line of property tax bills.

Jim McConville, Shirley

According to “Lawmaker: New tax plan to keep local deductions” [News, Oct. 31], House Republicans from high-tax states have wrung a key concession from GOP tax-plan writers, in that taxpayers would be able to continue to deduct some local property taxes on their federal tax returns.

However, it’s not such a key concession, since the deduction for state and local income taxes would end. This would still result in an increased federal tax burden for residents of New York and other high-tax states. According to this article, Trump administration officials contend that the state and local tax deduction forces the rest of the country to subsidize homeowners in high-tax, big-spending states.

However, high-tax states such as New York, New Jersey and California pay more into the federal tax system than they get back in federal spending. The low-tax states get more federal tax dollars than they contribute. So, who is subsidizing whom?

Barry Siskind, Smithtown