An even better word here is 'expenses'. Businesses pay tax revenue net of expenses, people pay tax on revenue, and Propublica is shocked - shocked! - by what businesses can count as expenses.
I suppose there's an argument that standard exemption/deduction are an estimate of baseline expenses to sustain labor, and additional costs over that are consumption that shouldn't be allowed to be netted against revenue (labor income). Does one's _entire_ rent go toward sustaining their productive capacity, or does is some part of that accrue to personal enjoyment? Of course, for most workers, even the 12k deduction probably doesn't feel anywhere close to basic living expenses,
It is nice to imagine a fairer system that would allow the high cost of living in most US cities to be reflected in the treatment of labor income, but that sounds like even more complexity to add to the tax code.