I agree, but they are going to keep saying it’s for the middle class, in hope that someone will believe them. This tax cut can pay your phone bill for the entire year! 
If thing stays as they proposed we will owe an additional 3-4K , sigh.
I’m sure donations will go down as well since they will no longer be deductible unless of course you donate so much that you can still itemize which of course I don’t.
I wonder what my estate tax professor has to say about this “reform.” He is retired, so no, repeal of federal estate tax will not affect him one zip, and there is still that state estate tax that ain’t going away. He, a fiscal conservative, was totally against “litte rich kids in patent leather shoes” getting estate windfalls. He said he preferred to see money working instead of being accumulated and stashed away for some heirs, which is what estate tax was supposed to stimulate.
Am I understanding this- we would go from our $23,000 in itemized + $4050 exemption + $4050 exemption to just a $24,000 standard deduction, is that right? Would not make sense to itemize if property taxes + mortgage interest are less than $24,000. And losing the student loan interest deduction? This sounds like a nightmare.
@rockvillemom yep that’s it
Many people have very little understanding of how federal income tax is calculated (consider all of those who go to store front tax preparers for their 1040EZ tax forms), so they may find it too difficult to do their own fact checking on any claims.
Let’s see… Property tax $10k - that leaves $14k in deductible mortgage interest below that it does not make sense to itemize. About $1200 a month in interst… that is about $250k at 4% 30 yr cut off or so.
@bluebayou The proposed 5th year AOTC is up to a $1250 credit and not the full $2500 credit.
While Coverdells go away, 529 plans could be used for K-12 tuition.
K-12? So the little heirs in patent leather shoes can avoid going to school with riffraff ? 
@Madison85 I didn’t even catch that it was only a partial credit. 
My disability listservs just brought this to our attention:
Right now, small business can get a tax credit for making their businesses accessible to disabled people. That’s going away.
Cool.
Yeah, I get that, but its also better than the current law, which is zero. 
It can be better for some and worse for others who could have taken the lifetime learning credit of up to $2k.
Under LLC, I could take a 2k deduction. So no, for many/(most?), it was up to 2k before this law- not zero. Just under a different program.
I figured out why the student loan deduction made a difference on my taxes- it’s an above-the-line deduction for my income bracket. So there is a hit regardless of standard deduction.
^^correct, but as I understand it, the Lifetime Credit is mostly used by grad students as opposed to undergrads. (At a certain point, when is taxpayer support enough, particularly when we still have significant high school dropouts?)
The lifetime learning credit is not a deduction, it is a credit of 20% of tuition up to $10k paid in tuition.
If a student graduated from undergrad in 4 years and in the 5th calendar year, then the student (or his parents) likely isn’t taking the AOTC.
If a student’s tuition for the 8th semester in the 5th calendar year is less than $6,250 then the lifetime learning credit would have been a smaller credit than the proposed expanded 5th year AOTC.
Sorry my point was just that it is negatively affecting some (like those in my situation).
@OHMomof2 It would seem like the standard deduction is doubled, but actually a single mom of 3 or a married couple of 2 will actually have less protected from income tax and the amount of income taxed starts at 12% instead of the current 10%.
A single mom of 3 kids currently can use the HOH Standard Deduction of $9,300 and you get four personal exemptions worth $4,050 each, so $25,500 of your income is protected from tax now. The current GOP plan protects only a flat $12,000 of income from tax. This is a tax increase.
A married couple filing jointly currently can use the standard deduction of $12,700 and you get four personal exemptions worth $4,050 each, so $28,900 of your income is protected from tax now. The current GOP plan protects only a flat $24,000 of income from tax. This is a tax increase.
For a MFJ couple who doesn’t and didn’t itemize, you can’t necessarily say that there’s a tax increase based solely on your comparison of $28900 to $24000 in protection because the 12% tax bracket goes up to $90k in the proposal while the current 15% bracket goes up to about $75k. Also, you are missing the increase in the child tax credit by $600 and the new $300 credit for each the taxpayer and spouse under the proposal.