By: Aaron Kliegman
Tax cuts signed into law in 2017 by then-President Donald Trump have raised revenues for the federal government over the last five years, despite concerns among Democrats and other critics that the cuts would be a fiscal nightmare only benefiting the rich.
The government collected a record $4.9 trillion in revenue last year, according to the latest
report from the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan federal agency. That's nearly $500 billion higher than what the CBO had projected.
Receipts from corporate income taxes, meanwhile, were $425 billion, exceeding CBO's projection by 25%, while receipts from individual income taxes were $2.6 trillion, exceeding CBO's projection by 11%.
Federal revenues are now up about $1.5 trillion, or roughly 40%, since the Trump tax cuts went into effect at the beginning of 2018. By comparison, the cuts were initially estimated to cost the government $1 trillion,
according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.
"We have higher tax revenue right now than we've ever had in the history of the country," Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.) told the John Solomon Reports podcast. "Think about that: Everything we've been through — COVID, inflation, all of the challenges of the last 36 months that our country has had — we have higher tax revenues than we have ever had in the history of the country."
Trump signed the Republican-backed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act into law in December 2017. The legislation
simplified tax filing for many families and
lowered the tax rates paid by most filers. It also cut business taxes, including lowering the corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21%.
Congressman Austin Scott
austinscott.house.gov