You NEED to know these facts about Trump’s tax ‘reform’ scam
Trump’s much-touted push for tax “reform” is anything but – it’s yet another tax giveback for the rick based on failed “trickle-down” mythology.
Trump is calling for a reduction of the nominal corporate tax rate from 35% to 20% – at the same time that
[T]he Treasury Department has removed from its website an economic study that directly undermines a key part of the GOP tax plan that Secretary Steven Mnuchin has been peddling on almost every morning show since before the plan was even announced.
Under the proposed GOP plan, the corporate tax rate would be slashed from 35 to 20 percent, constituting a 15 percent reduction.
The study, published in 2012 by the Office of Tax Analysis, found that workers only bear (or benefit from) 18 percent of the cost of corporate taxes, compared to 82 percent for corporate owners. This appears to be the general consensus among economists. As the Wall Street Journal notes, the bipartisan Joint Committee on Taxation and Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that the corporate tax burden is 75 percent, versus 25 percent for workers.
And there’s this new study:
The Republican tax plan promoted by President Trump this week as a middle-class tax cut would overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest Americans and businesses, according to an analysis released on Friday by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
The report, which is the first detailed assessment of the plan’s financial impact, found that the average tax bill for all income groups would decline by $1,600, or 2.1 percent, in 2018. The biggest decrease would go to those with incomes above $730,000, who would see their after-tax incomes rise by an average of 8.5 percent, or about $129,000.
Those in the middle quintile — with incomes averaging $66,960 — would see their after-tax income rise by 1.2 percent or about $660.
Got that? That’s a tax increase on the middle class. Let’s look at other specifics:
The Republican tax plan would deliver a major benefit to the top 1 percent of Americans, according to a new analysis by a leading group of nonpartisan tax experts that challenges the White House’s portrayal of its effects.
The plan delivers far more modest tax cuts to most other households — an average cut of $1,700 to households in 2027. But the results would be unevenly spread, with one in four households paying more in taxes.
The rich declared class war on the rest of us over three decades ago, garnering their first major tax takebacks under Hollywood has-been Ronald Reagan.
Enough, already.
Call your senators and congresscritters. Demand a return to the income tax rates of the early 1960s. Demand no cap on payroll taxes. Demand that lazy money be put to work creating jobs by reinstating the estate tax and raising the rate to 100% on estates larger than $1 million. Demand a progressive capital gains tax to encourage small investors: a lower rate below $10,000, a slightly higher rate above $100,000.
Trump is vulnerable, and even Republican legislators are listening! Better yet, enough of a groundswell may make Trump do a 180-degree turn:
