Republicans are moving ahead with the biggest tax overhaul in 30 years, and if all goes as planned, President Trump will sign it by Christmas.
While the GOP is selling the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as a win for the middle class, the numbers don't tell ...
Republicans are moving ahead with the biggest tax overhaul in 30 years, and if all goes as planned, President Trump will sign it by Christmas.
While the GOP is selling the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as a win for the middle class, the numbers don't tell the same story. Salon's Alyona Minkovski breaks down the figures for "Salon Now."
The Tax Policy Center, a non-partisan think tank, released a detailed analysis of the bill that shows the benefits would overwhelmingly go to the wealthy and corporations. According to their figures, the average American is expected to save $1600 at first, but almost all individual tax cuts will expire in 2025. At that point, 80 percent of the benefits will go to the top one percent of earners.
Even in the immediate term, the top one percent will get an average tax cut of roughly $50,000, which equals 3.4 percent of their after-tax income. Middle-income taxpayers would save about 1.6 percent and those making under $25,000 a year will only save 0.4 percent.
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has argued that this tax bill will be popular once people see the results, but so far that's not the case. A recent CNN poll found that just 33 percent of Americans favor the plan, while 55 percent oppose it. A whopping 66 percent say the plan will do more to benefit the wealthy than the middle class.