The big issue here…is there is pressure to get this passed by both the house and senate before they recess for the December holidays. Rush rush so,that something is done before the end of the year.
TBH, they don’t have time to be careful if their timeline requires voting before they recess…in a very short time.
Makes me ill.
@“Cardinal Fang” Well put.
This really is a grave disservice to the American people. To slap something this important together without proper thought is shameless.
This is going to pump up the deficit by 2-3 Trillion. Not just the 1.5 trillion expected.
Can you even stand that we throw around the “trillion” number like it is nothing? Disgusting.
Probably that wouldn’t introduce cost control; it doesn’t for people under 65, so why would it for people 65 and older?
In ten years, individual tax breaks expire, leaving it to whomever rules in Congress to extend them or let them expire. Making it their problem, because if they put in permanent tax breaks, they would have to account for their cost for far longer…permanently, infinitely?
But if they expire in ten years, then people are actually calling this a tax increase overall because they expire? And they don’t just expire for lower or middle income filers, they expire for everyone. So how is it that upper income taxpayers taxes go down or stay as they are? How can that be? If they expire, they expire for everyone. It’s not just like the tax rates only change for some. Or do they? What is the explanation for that?
It’s seven years, not ten. 2025.
Because higher income taxpayers benefit from some of the other provisions, like the lower tax on pass-through income, that are not available to lower income wage earners.
The pass-through income is so attractive to game. It’s the cornucopia of tax loopholes.
Right now, my favorite San Jose Sharks pay their players enormous salaries. But if Joe Thornton and Brent Burns become Thornton Incorporated and Burns Co., they can sell their valuable services to the Sharks, pay themselves a salary, and get the huge pass-through tax benefits.
I think what your hearing is the the wealthy are being combined with the business tax cuts. Your absolutely right about a plain high earning W-2 employee. That person will see taxes increase also in 10 years. But what about wealthy business owners? How do they fare? Much of the tax breaks will benefit them as business owners where the business rate combined with other provisions will allow them to net better off.
Thanks for the explanations.
But if people can play a pass-through game, can’t everyone play the same game? It is not just limited to high earners. Though it would not benefit people who are paying a lower tax rate anyways. They need to take care of that so people can’t set up a scam to take legal advantage of it, because anyone who can, will.
Okay, that makes sense, but the way it is being portrayed in some places is a little different, which seems like stretching the truth. As if the individual rates are only going up on the poor and middle class. And it’s actually an increase in taxes for them all…because they expire. Not just on the poor and middle class.
There is enough wrong with this tax bill that people don’t need to exaggerate and come to conclusions that massively generalize.
I think the numbers do show that poor people in the 10% tax bracket will now be paying 12% as that is the lowest rate now. As people have mentioned, the change in standard deduction coupled with losing the personal exemption is not a big deal as far as net savings. A married couple was 8K plus 12K std ded. Now it is 24K std ded. 4K benefit X 12% rate is a $480 saving/52 weeks = $10 bucks a week savings. Not a game changer for them. About a dollar a day. So a free cup of coffee off the Massive, Massive tax cut promised.
Seven years. Very interesting number… I shall stop at that.
I have seen a chart that showed it actually is a very large percentage cut for lower income filers. However, if you were only paying a small amount in federal income taxes, a 50% tax cut might sound good in theory, but you end up with few extra dollars. So I can see how they could claim it’s a massive tax cut in percentages, however, unless you’re going to give people money back, you can’t get a massive tax cut in dollars, if you weren’t paying large amounts of federal dollars.
My kids live in high tax states. I expect at least one of them will be paying more.
it isn’t going to create a ginormous deficit because, according to the President, “Mr. Trump, for his part, expressed optimism on Wednesday that the bill would get to him quickly and said that he expected the tax bill to help drive a surge in economic growth to 6 percent — a level far greater than most economists believe possible.
“So we’re at 3.3 percent G.D.P.,” Mr. Trump said, referring to gross domestic product, a measure of the economy’s strength. “I see no reason why we don’t go to 4, 5 and even 6 percent.”
It’s a beautiful bill, believe me.
@busdriver11 That is right. You were smart to pick up on that little trick. They talk about percentages for the poor. As you pointed out if you pay a little and save 25%, it is still a small amount in nominal terms. Too bad we can’t spend percentages. We spent nominal amounts.
@ProfessorMom1 (post 1989)
Unless you have a negatively amortized mortgage, there isn’t any interest beyond one month to “prepay”-- you are billed interest as it comes due. Your monthly mortgage statement includes 100% of the interest that has accrued to date-- so when you prepay in advance more than one month out, there is nowhere for the excess to go but principal.
I just read about a proposal, not part of the Senate or House bill, but with the potential to be added in reconciliation, to exempt from the estate tax bequests to IRC 501©(4), ©(5), and ©(6) organizations. Currently, bequests to IRC 501©(3) nonprofits are exempt; the addition of the others would exempt bequests to “social-welfare”-type nonprofits, which include so-called dark money political organizations such as Americans for Prosperity. The Koch brothers, and other wealthy political donors, would exert their influence long after death if this change goes through.
The more cuts they make in reconciliation…the less likely this is to pass…the revenue has to come from somewhere.
And if they can’t come to an agreement…in reconciliation…doesn’t this then have to have a 60 vote to win in the senate?
My guess is that they will end up increasing the corporate rate to 22% in reconciliation to pay for the changes being discussed. The president has indicated support for that idea. I’m not sure what happens if they don’t agree in reconciliation – I think for practical purposes the bill dies. But I’m pretty sure they aren’t going to let that happen.
In today’s horrifying statistic, ending the estate tax for 5500 millionaires costs more than providing health insurance for 9 million children.
Seriously, America?
The lapse in CHIP funding is a new low- even for this congress. It is and has been bipartisan for years. These are CHILDREN we are talking about.
It is a sad day in America when we care more about dead moneybags than living, breathing future taxpayers.