What we know – and don't know – about the Republican tax plan

[umbertino]

 

Donald Trump’s $1.5tn tax overhaul received a blow after Alabama’s surprise Senate result but is now speeding towards a vote. Here’s what you need to know

 

Dominic Rushe in New York

Wednesday 13 December 2017 19.39 GMT

 

 

Donald Trump will address the nation on Wednesday as Republicans make a final push to pass their bill

Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/13/donald-trump-republican-tax-plan-what-we-know

[umbertino]

The Republican tax bill will weaken the United States

 

Thursday 14 December 2017 13.54 GMT

 

By  Connie M Razza

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/14/the-republican-tax-bill-will-weaken-the-united-states

[adhoc10]

In all fairness, the bad reviews are only from the people that have actually read the legislation. 

[Jim1cor13]

5 hours ago, adhoc10 said:

In all fairness, the bad reviews are only from the people that have actually read the legislation. 

 

 

 

You are very observant adhoc. As with any legislation, we the people never get to read what is in it...

and I bet we can assume it will benefit corporate America much more than its citizens. Always does...

 

Washington needs its revenues. They just had another record breaking take off the backs of the people.

Anyone think they would reduce that amount?

 

[umbertino]

 

Hello Jim...Hope all is fine with you and yours....

[adhoc10]

12 hours ago, Jim1cor13 said:

Anyone think they would reduce that amount?

 

So many things to say about this comment. Thanks for the laugh! 

[Shabibilicious]

The fiscally responsible party they said.....drop the deficit they said.....for our children they said......trust us they say.  

 

GO RV, then BV

[patrickgold]

 

4 minutes ago, Shabibilicious said:

The fiscally responsible party they said.....drop the deficit they said.....for our children they said......trust us they say.  

 

GO RV, then BV

Funny how those words come to mind when obama was in office, to bad he didn't work hard enough to make corrections... just maybe these words wouldn't be repeating itself. JMO

[Shabibilicious]

1 minute ago, patrickgold said:

 

Funny how those words come to mind when obama was in office, to bad he didn't work hard enough to make corrections... just maybe these words wouldn't be repeating itself. JMO

 

I actually agree with that assessment.....I just can't for the life of me understand why Republicans preach fiscal responsibility and now that they have complete control to attempt to accomplish that mission, they go in the completely opposite direction and add 1.5 trillion to our bloated deficit, and apparently for no other reason than to buy votes for the 2018 midterms.....party over country.  Shameful.  As always, just my opinion.

 

GO RV, then BV

[patrickgold]

6 minutes ago, Shabibilicious said:

 

I actually agree with that assessment.....I just can't for the life of me understand why Republicans preach fiscal responsibility and now that they have complete control to attempt to accomplish that mission, they go in the completely opposite direction and add 1.5 trillion to our bloated deficit, and apparently for no other reason than to buy votes for the 2018 midterms.....party over country.  Shameful.  As always, just my opinion.

 

GO RV, then BV

I won't go in the direction of what was added to our deficit, because you know WHO added many times more than that.

You are correct politicians will do anything for a vote, it's about their pockets, popularity and lifestyle. 

[umbertino]

Inequality on Apple's doorstep: how the GOP tax bill could worsen the divide

 

In Cupertino, the world’s most valuable company could reap enormous benefits from Republicans’ plan – even as the measure threatens sorely needed affordable housing and healthcare benefits for local residents

 

Sam Levin in Cupertino, California

Friday 15 December 2017 12.00 GMT

 

 

Hector Chavez and Yvonne Scott: ‘Money has not trickled down to us.’

Photograph: Sam Levin for the Guardian

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/15/republican-tax-bill-apple-cupertino-inequality

[umbertino]

GOP tax cut for rich and corporations in trouble in Senate

 

December 15, 2017 12:11 PM CST By Mark Gruenberg

 

 

 

Protesters shout their disapproval of the Republican tax bill outside the Senate Budget Committee hearing room on Capitol Hill. | J. Scott Applewhite / AP

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.peoplesworld.org/article/gop-tax-cut-for-rich-and-corporations-in-trouble-in-senate/

[coorslite21]

Now we know everything.......

 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/02/us/politics/document-Read-the-G-O-P-Tax-Bill.html

 

 

[yota691]

Tax cuts means less Government. doesn't take a Rocket scientist to figure that out, and the phrase it only for the Rich. SO who are these Rich Folks. Do the Rich Hire people? Do the Rich Invest in production to produce goods. Are the Rich sitting back and doing nothing? How did they get so Rich? The Rich have been label the bad guy, when in fact they move the wheels of the world. 

[adhoc10]

12 hours ago, coorslite21 said:

Now we know everything.......

 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/02/us/politics/document-Read-the-G-O-P-Tax-Bill.html

 

 

Well damn! I'm still working on the fine print for my last prescription drug....and that was only two pages long. 

 

12 hours ago, coorslite21 said:

Now we know everything.......

Thanks coorslite. 

 

Knowing  everything is a bit more complicated than I imagined! A somewhat humbling realization! 

 

I'd be interested to know how many folks on the forum actually read and understand this tax bill. Imagine if you had to give a vote on it in a small amount of time. 

 

[yota691]

Here’s What’s In the Final Draft of the GOP Tax Bill

By Eric Levitz@EricLevitz

 

Representative Kevin Brady, President Donald Trump, Senator Orrin Hatch. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Congressional Republicans unveiled the final draft of their plan to exacerbate economic inequality in the United States – or, as they put it, “reform the tax code” – at 5:30 pm, Friday afternoon. Which is clearly the time that you would release your tax bill if you were certain that voters will love it, and wanted to make sure as many of them learn about its details as possible.

The House and Senate had already passed their own tax-cut bills, and Republican leaders from each chamber had spent the past week trying to iron out the differences between the two drafts — and fix some haste-induced, multibillion-dollar mistakes.

They appear poised to pass their final, consensus product early next week. Bob Corker, the lone Senate Republican “no” on the earlier tax cut bill, announced Friday that he would support the new legislation, even though it addresses absolutely none of his previous concerns. As of this writing, senators Jeff Flake and Susan Collins still haven’t committed to voting for the new bill. Technically, if they were to oppose it – and John McCain were sidelined by health problems – the legislation could run into trouble next week. But those are huge ifs, and all signs suggest that Christmas is going to come early for the GOP donor class.

 

Here’s a quick rundown of how the Trump Tax Cuts 3.0 bill will differ from the party’s earlier versions.

What’s in:

A 21 percent corporate rate.
The previous bills would have slashed the top corporate tax rate from 35 to 20 percent. The final legislation bumps that up to 21, so as to fund:

Yet another tax break for millionaires.
The House bill kept the top marginal rate on individual income (for people who actually work for their money) at 39.6 percent. The Senate version lowered it to 38.5 percent. But in conference, Republicans concluded that their previous efforts had not redistributed quite enough wealth to the richest people in American society — and brought the top rate down to 37.

Here’s full look at the new tax rates:

Here are the new personal income tax rates https://t.co/AqBneRvri7 pic.twitter.com/X9u7WrASF5

— Joe Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) December 15, 2017

Note: All of the bill’s tax cuts for individuals expire in 2024.

A slightly more refundable child tax credit.
Marco Rubio injected some last-minute intrigue into the conference committee’s proceedings Thursday, when he announced that he would oppose the final legislation if it did not make more of the child tax credit refundable. The Florida senator’s (cogent) argument being that working parents who don’t earn enough money to pay much federal income tax — but are still subject to payroll taxes — shouldn’t get a smaller child-care subsidy than millionaire couples do.

The Senate bill doubled the current child tax credit from $1,000 to $2,000, while making $1,100 of that refundable. The bill would have also expanded access for the subsidy on one front — the legislation makes families that earn between $110,000 and $500,000 a year newly eligible for the tax credit — while contracting access on another: the bill would restrict eligibility to parents who have Social Security numbers, thereby cutting off a form of cash assistance to American children with undocumented guardians.

On Friday, Republican negotiators agreed to increase the refundability cap to $1,400. Thus, the final bill still gives a bigger subsidy to affluent families than to the working poor. Also, to offset the cost of raising the refundability cap, GOP lawmakers restricted the credit to children younger than 17. That’s the same as current law, but earlier versions of the bill would have looped in 17-year-olds. Together, these changes actually make the child tax credit a smaller part of the overall bill. Rubio is, nonetheless, satisfied.

The Rubio CTC changes, all told, actually slightly *reduce* value of CTC increase in the bill, per JCT

— Jim Tankersley (@jimtankersley) December 15, 2017

A slightly smaller (but still giant) tax break for businesses that evade corporate taxes.
The single most indefensible piece of the GOP tax plan has always been its break for “pass-through” businesses. Right now, American companies that are registered as corporations must pay the corporate tax rate. This means that the owners of such companies have their business earnings taxed twice — first, at the corporate rate, and then as personal income. But closely held companies are allowed to distribute earnings to their owners without paying the corporate rate (in other words, their profits “pass through” to the owners’ individual returns). Those earnings are then taxed only once, as individual income.

The ostensible point of this policy is to make life a bit easier for small, mom-and-pop businesses. But a company’s eligibility for “pass-through” status isn’t determined by size. Koch Industries and the Trump Organization are both pass-through entities. So are most hedge funds. The very existence of such giant pass-throughs is, essentially, a giant loophole in our tax code. And yet, the small business lobby – and a bevy of powerful Republican politicians who own pass-throughs (including, of course, the president) – promoted the idea that it would somehow be “unfair” to lower the corporate rate without also cutting their tax bills.

So, the House bill established a new 25 percent rate on pass-through business income, while the Senate version created a special, 23 percent deduction for the wealthy owners of such businesses. The final bill scales that deduction back down to 20 percent.

A slightly more generous state-and-local tax deduction.
One of the primary sources of new revenue in both the House and Senate bills comes from scaling back the state-and-local tax (SALT) deduction. Initially, the GOP leadership had hoped to repeal the deduction entirely — a change that would have functioned as a large tax hike on affluent, upper-middle-class homeowners in high-tax (i.e., blue) states. Unfortunately for Paul Ryan, such homeowners are the core constituency of Republican House members from New Jersey, New York, and California. And so, the initial bills ended up preserving a $10,000 property tax deduction. But in California, property taxes are far less of a burden than state income taxes. And so, Golden State Republicans got the conference committee to let taxpayers deduct $10,000 of state property — or income — taxes from their federal liability, under the terms of the final bill.

Repeal of Obamacare’s individual mandate.
This was in the Senate bill but not in the House’s. Repealing the tax penalty for going without insurance will decrease participation in Obamacare — and thus, decrease the amount the government spends on health insurance subsidies by roughly $300 billion over the next decade. Republicans need that money to pass giant tax cuts for the rich without violating their budget resolution (which forbids them from adding more than $1.5 trillion to the deficit over the next ten years).

The estate tax.
The House bill would have fully repealed the 40 percent tax on inheritances worth more than $5.49 million for individuals and $10.98 million for families. The final bill preserves the tax, but temporarily doubles those thresholds — in 2026, the status quo estate tax go back into effect (watch out for an uptick in patricides among the one percent in 2025).

A slightly less generous mortgage interest deduction.
Currently, Americans can deduct up to $1.1 million in mortgage interest. The House would have moved that cap down to $500,000. The final bill sets it at $750,000.

A special tax break for parents who send their kids to private school.
Right now, Americans can use tax-advantaged “529” accounts to save money for college tuition expenses. Ted Cruz tried to add a provision to the Senate bill that would allow people to use money from those accounts to pay for K-through-12 tuition. It was rejected. But, somehow, the measure made it into the final bill.

What’s out:

The corporate alternative minimum tax.
As already mentioned, most corporations currently face a 35 percent (statutory) rate on their income. But by availing themselves of various tax credits and deductions, most companies can get their actual rates down far below that figure. To put a limit on just how far, the alternative minimum tax (AMT) prevents companies from paying any less than 20 percent on their profits (or, more precisely, on the profits that they fail to hide overseas). The GOP had originally intended to abolish the corporate AMT. But Mitch McConnell made a series of expensive, last-minute changes to the Senate bill and found himself in desperate need of offsetting revenue. So, he decided to put the AMT back into that legislation — but forgot to lower the AMT after doing so.

This was a big problem: If the standard rate is 20 percent – and the alternative minimum rate is 20 percent – then virtually all corporate tax deductions are rendered completely worthless. GOP donors flipped out.

The final bill fixes this issue by scrapping the corporate AMT entirely. How it makes up the lost revenue from this is not immediately clear.

A provision that would have made the Koch Brothers’ anonymous donations to “nonprofit” political advocacy organizations tax deductible.
The House bill would have repealed the Johnson Amendment — a law that prohibits nonprofit groups with tax-exempt status (like churches and charities) from directly participating in partisan politics. This would have enabled Evangelical megachurches to donate to political candidates, while also empowering billionaire donors to start using nonprofit public advocacy “charities” as tax-exempt super-PACs. The Senate parliamentarian ruled that the provision violated the rules of budget reconciliation.

The part designed to raise the bankruptcy rate for disabled people with expensive medical conditions.
The House bill repealed the medical-expense deduction, a tax break used by a small number of extremely sick people. The final bill retains it.

The stuff that would have made a higher education (even more) unaffordable for ordinary Americans.
The tax on graduate student waivers and the repeal of the student-loan interest deduction are both gone.

[yota691]

Trump Tax Reform Calculator

 

The Trump Tax Reform bill is another step closer to being law with the final bill out of committee and headed to the House and Senate for voting on the final version of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

How Will the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Impact Me

There will be a change in most of the seven tax brackets in 2018. The personal tax brackets will be as follows: 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35% and 37%. Small business owners who are setup as S-Corporations or Limited Liability companies and receive pass-through income via a K-1 or form 1065, will be allowed to deduct 20% of their income prior to applying the personal income tax rates up to certain qualifying income limits, and the corporate rate will be cut from 35% to 21%.

Other features of H.R. 1, Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, will be to double the standard deduction to $12,000 for single filers and $24,000 for married filing jointly, but completely eliminate personal exemptions. State, local and property taxes deductions for those itemizing will be capped at $10,000. It also expands the medical expense deduction for two years for filers meeting that threshold from 10% AGI to 7.5% AGI. Mortgage interest will be deductible for mortgages up to $750,000. The child tax credit will increase from $1,000 to $2,000 per child under 18 years of age with $1,400 of the $2,000 potentially refundable. Filers with dependents who do not qualify for the child tax credit will be able to claim a $500 credit for each dependent. The bill also repeals the individual mandate to purchase health insurance.

With the bills in reconciliation, you can read more about how the GOP tax bill affects your tax liability.

Use this tax calculator tool to help estimate your potential 2018 tax liability under the new plan.

Once you run this calculator then you can run the current 2017 tax calculator to see if you will be paying more or less under the new plan. We will continually refine the calculator as more information becomes available.

[coorslite21]

14 minutes ago, adhoc10 said:

Well damn! I'm still working on the fine print for my last prescription drug....and that was only two pages long. 

 

Thanks coorslite. 

 

Knowing  everything is a bit more complicated than I imagined! A somewhat humbling realization! 

 

I'd be interested to know how many folks on the forum actually read and understand this tax bill. Imagine if you had to give a vote on it in a small amount of time. 

 

 

The number who have read it and understand it would be zero........even more crazy is the actual tax code that is our law........70,000 plus pages....If I recall is was in 1913 that the Central Banking/ IRS came to be in the US........which many today still believe is not a legal.....

 

73,954 pages

 

How long is the federal tax code?
52,790 pages.
19,803 pages.
73,954 pages.Jul 24, 2013

[adhoc10]

1 hour ago, coorslite21 said:

The number who have read it and understand it would be zero........even more crazy is the actual tax code that is our law........70,000 plus pages....If I recall is was in 1913 that the Central Banking/ IRS came to be in the US........which many today still believe is not a legal.....

That is something to give you pause. We are debating legislation based on what no one understands, that affects the financial well being of every US citizen, as well as, every corporate entity. Not to disparage the blind or the deaf, but it sounds a lot like the blind leading the deaf. I wonder where this will take us. 

Edited December 16, 2017 by adhoc10
Rephrase for clarity

[coorslite21]

3 minutes ago, adhoc10 said:

That is something to give you pause. We are debating legislation based on what no one understands, that affects the financial well being of every US citizen, as well as, every corporate entity. Not to disparage the blind or the deaf, but it sounds a lot like the blind leading the deaf. I wonder where this will take us. 

 

No telling.......it's been this way for decades and they always seem to make adjustments.......we are due for another one........soooooon.......JMO

[umbertino]

Trump insists Republican tax cuts will make US economy 'rock'

 

President suggests ‘4%, 5% or even 6%’ growth, a claim experts doubt

 

 

Associated Press in Washington

Saturday 16 December 2017 19.20 GMT

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/16/donald-trump-republican-tax-cuts-us-economy-rock

 

[umbertino]

Bernie Sanders: Trump tax cuts a barely disguised reward for billionaire donors

 

The Vermont senator tells the Guardian why the tax bill – which could become law next week – is the result of 40 years’ scheming by the Kochs and others

 

Ed Pilkington in Washington

Saturday 16 December 2017 11.00 GMT

 

 

Bernie Sanders in Washington on Friday in protest against the tax bill. ‘It is based on the fraudulent theory of trickle-down economics that never worked, never will work.’

Photograph: Alex Edelman/AFP/Getty Images

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/16/bernie-sanders-tax-bill-republicans-trump

[umbertino]

John McCain will not vote on Republican tax cuts this week

 

Republican senator, battling cancer, to spend holidays with family in Arizona

 

Bill would provide Trump with first legislative win as president

 

Guardian staff and agencies

Sunday 17 December 2017 23.04 GMT

 

 

 

McCain and Trump have been at odds in recent months, but McCain’s absence would not put the Republican bill in danger

Photograph: Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/17/republicans-confident-tax-bill-reform-trump

 

[umbertino]

Senate approves most drastic changes to US tax code in 30 years

 

Donald Trump has said his first major legislative victory would be a ‘big, beautiful Christmas present’ for Americans

 

Sabrina Siddiqui, Ben Jacobs and Lauren Gambino in Washington

Wed 20 Dec ‘17 06.03 GMT

 

 

 

 

 

Vid in link

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/19/donald-trump-tax-bill-plan-house-approves-senate

 

[umbertino]

Trump tax plan: the key points from the final bill

 

Here are the key parts of what would be the biggest overhaul of the US tax code in more than 30 years

 

Reuters

Tue 19 Dec ‘17 19.09 GMT

 

 

Protesters take part in an anti-Trump tax march in Atlanta in April

Photograph: Zuma Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/19/trump-tax-plan-whats-in-the-final-bill