Correct. Never said that they did not get a paycheck, and I was responding to a blogger on that subject. They do not necessarily increase their pay whenever. My discussion was geared toward that tax reduction for the super-wealthy, who spent that money on the stock market. When they lose that huge windfall, they won't necessarily take a larger paycheck, and businesses do not always recoup their losses.
Businesses and business owners were in the stock market long before the tax cut and after the tax cut. It's not like they never had this money before and ran to their brokers for the first time.
When business grows, so do jobs in many instances. You are correct, they may not take a bigger paycheck, but they're not going to allow the company to make less profit either. They will cut hours or overtime, increase employee contributions to their healthcare plan, increase prices on their products or services, but nobody is digging deeper into their pockets without reclaiming that money somehow or some way.
Bottom line is no matter what, it's the little guy who actually has to pay those higher taxes one way or another.
Wrong. Very often the company can't control the reduction in income.
The tax reduction was no help except to those who got the deal and did not create more jobs. The jobs market was increasing before the tax windfall.
The bipartisan CBO, and the data, highlight you are incorrect:
Trump's Tax Cut 'Scam' Created 1.3 Million New Jobs, New CBO Data Show
Democrats claim that the solid growth in 2018 was baked in the cake while Barack Obama was president. But that's simply not the case.
In January 2017 — before Trump entered the White House — the CBO projected that the economy would expand by only 2% in 2018, followed by 1.7% in 2019 and 1.5% next year.
That's what was baked in the cake. Continued tepid economic growth. Keep in mind that, when the CBO made those economic forecasts at the start of the Trump administration, they were right in line with other mainstream economic forecasts.
What actually happened was a very different story.
The actual growth for 2018 will likely have been 2.9% or 3%. And the CBO now expects GDP to climb 2.7% this year, and 1.9% next year.
The jobs picture improved dramatically as well.
In January 2017, CBO forecast an average unemployment rate of 4.4% for 2018. The actual number: 3.9%
In January 2017, CBO said that the economy would create an average of just 94,000 jobs a month in 2018. The actual results for 2018: 203,000 news jobs a month.
In other words, the nation's economy in 2018 was almost $400 billion bigger and there were about 1.3 million more jobs created than the CBO had expected
Try to understand that this recession was one fart from collapsing into a depression. Deepest recession in history. A slow recovery was just fine and would have increased in speed as jobs increased and money flowed into the economy.
There are unintended consequences when one can't see the big picture and just wants his pocket and ego stroked.
Yes, it got much deeper and last much longer due to the fact Obama, had a Dem Congress, that had been in office for two years prior to him taking office, and he and that Dem Congress created legislation that drove up UE to double digits. He didn't benefit from having a GOP Congress when he took office. I admit that.
Yes, and in fact it did increase in speed, because jobs increased and money flowed into the economy....due to the tax cuts when Trump took office. Glad we are finally in total agreement here
Jobs were already increasing and money was flowing into the economy before Trump gave the super-wealthy that huge tax reduction. Yes, it did increase in speed and so what? This was the deepest recession in history and slow but steady recovery was doing the job. The tax cuts for the wealthy increased the national debt by 2 trillion dollars and the wealthy used their windfall to invest in the stock market, and not in the economy. Tax cuts, low-interest rates, and regulation slashing should be done to goose a sagging economy and not be wasted because we won't have them when the economy recesses.
But as you said, slowly....very slowly...with that said, what huge tax reductions are you talking about? I don't recall of any huge tax reductions for the super wealthy...can you please provide the code section?
The only major tax cuts I recall during the Trump admin, was the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 17, where the upper brackets, got a 1.5 percent cut, and the middle classes, got anywhere between a 2 percent, to a 4 percent cut
Under previous law Under TCJA
Rate Income bracket Rate Income bracket
10% $0–$9,525 10% $0–$9,525
15% $9,525–$38,700 12% $9,525–$38,700
25% $38,700–$93,700 22% $38,700–$82,500
28% $93,700–$195,450 24% $82,500–$157,500
33% $195,450–$424,950 32% $157,500–$200,000
35% $424,950–$426,700 35% $200,000–$500,000
39.5% $426,700 and up 37% $500,000 and up
Where were you people when all tax stuff was going down? Didn't Fox News report it? Nah.
6 Ways the Trump Administration Is Rigging an Already Unfair ...
www.americanprogress.org › issues › news › 2020/10/28
Oct 28, 2020 — Taken together, the changes this law made will dramatically
reduce tax bills for the very
wealthy, leaving the working and middle class with little ...
I am not sure...what code section are you referring to? I highlighted the one I was aware of, and the new tax rates for individual incomes.
I started to read your "American Progress" op-ed.....and the first paragraph discusses how the President might have been able to take advantage of a law signed into place by Obama, that extend the amount of time one could defer their loses.
I started to read number 1, but it started by saying tax cuts were cut "drastically" for the rich....but as I highlighted it was 1.5 percent....not drastic at all....unless there is another law, that I'm unaware of, that you have yet to provide the code for me to review.
The second point, discuss corp taxes, which everyone can, and many middle class folks own and run...but somehow suggest that only the wealthy own businesses....odd.
The third point, talk against about corp tax rates, which doesn't just impact the wealthy, but every American
The 4th, talks about the stupid death tax, that makes zero sense what so ever....why are we taxing dead people's money, yet again?
the 5th point didn't happen, and frankly was untrue speculation.
Cap Gains is something everyone can pay if they have it, and it's the same rates for everyone...not just the wealthy
The tax cuts for the super-rich and corporations went from 39.5% to 21%. You need to read the whole enchilada.
6 Ways the Trump Administration Is Rigging an Already Unfair Tax Code
Getty/Johannes Eisele/AFPPeople walk past the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street in New York City on March 16, 2020.
The New York Times recently
reported that President Donald Trump paid no income taxes for most of the last two decades and only $750 in 2016 and 2017—spotlighting how a wealthy and unscrupulous business owner can take advantage of a broken tax code and weak tax enforcement.
Since taking office, President Trump’s administration has only made the tax code worse. Here are six ways the administration’s tax policies—particularly the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA)—further rig the tax code in favor of corporations and the wealthy and powerful.
1. The Trump administration’s main legislative accomplishment is a hugely regressive tax cut
The tax bill that President Trump signed into law in 2017 dramatically cut taxes for wealthy individuals and corporations. It slashed the top individual income tax rate, carved out a special new deduction mainly benefiting wealthy business owners, gutted the tax on large inheritances, and significantly reduced taxes on corporations. Taken together, the changes this law made will dramatically reduce tax bills for the very wealthy, leaving the working and middle class with little benefit. In 2020, the average household in the 1 percent will receive a tax cut of
$50,000—77 times larger than the average cut for the bottom 80 percent of Americans.
Figure 1
2. The TCJA opened up new loopholes for the wealthy
Although labeled “
tax reform,” the 2017 tax law actually opened up
major new loopholes for the wealthy to exploit. One of the biggest loopholes within the bill is the so-called pass-through loophole, which created a 20 percent deduction of business income for owners of businesses such as S corporations or LLCs—opening up a number of new
gaming opportunities. The deduction effectively lowered the top tax rate on most business income of high-income individuals by 10 percent—from the pre-2017 rate of 39.6 percent down to 29.6 percent. The largest beneficiaries of this provision by far are the richest 1 percent of Americans, who will see nearly
two-thirds of the windfall. Moreover, in the final hours before the bill was passed, lawmakers added a last-minute provision to expand the pass-through loophole, especially for
real estate owners.
3. The TCJA slashed corporate taxes by one-third
At the heart of the 2017 tax law is a large cut for corporations. The law slashed the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. And unlike the tax cuts for individuals—most of which will expire in 2026 and 2027—most of the cuts for corporations are permanent. Immediately after the law went into effect, corporate tax revenue began falling off a cliff. Before the 2017 tax bill was enacted, the Congressional Budget Office projected that corporations would pay roughly
$668 billion in taxes over 2018 and 2019. After the law was passed, however, corporations only ended up paying
$435 billion over that period—a 35 percent drop. The
primary argument from proponents of the bill was that corporations would take this $233 billion tax cut and reinvest it in new equipment, facilities, and their workforce. But instead, corporate investment
declined, as companies took those gains and funneled them back toward their wealthy shareholders through stock buybacks and dividends.
Figure 2
4. Wealthy estates got large tax cuts in the TCJA
The 2017 tax law also gave large tax cuts to the wealthiest estates. Before the law, only
0.2 percent of decedents’ estates paid any estate tax because of the generous exemption. The 2017 law
doubled the exemption so that more than $22 million of a couple’s wealth can be transferred to heirs tax-free—meaning that the wealthiest estates will pay more than $4 million less each than they would have under the pre-TCJA tax code. The estate tax cuts are estimated to cost
$83 billion in revenue over 10 years, and the number of wealthy estates subject to the tax each year is estimated to fall by more than two-thirds—from 5,500 to just 1,900 extremely wealthy heirs.
5. If the Trump administration succeeds in repealing the ACA, the wealthy would get more tax cuts while more than 20 million people would lose health coverage
The Trump administration is
actively backing a lawsuit pending before the U.S. Supreme Court that would repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in its entirety. If the administration is successful, it would likely eliminate the taxes that funded the law’s expansion of health coverage, including a tax on high-income individuals’ investment income and earnings and a tax on pharmaceutical drug companies. The Tax Policy Center
estimates that more than half of the tax cuts resulting from the ACA’s elimination would go to taxpayers in the top 1 percent, and more than 86 percent would go to the top quintile. The biggest beneficiaries from this change would be America’s billionaires, who have only gotten wealthier over the course of the year: The wealthiest 100 billionaires have seen their fortunes grow by more than
$400 billion combined since the start of 2020. If the ACA’s tax on investment income is repealed, they would each receive a massive windfall on their gains accrued in 2020—reducing their collective tax bill by more than $16 billion. Working- and middle-class Americans, on the other hand, would see
negligible tax cuts, while those who are currently receiving tax credits to help them afford health insurance would face
much higher premiums, if insurance is available to them at all. (The loss of premium tax credits is not reflected in Figure 3.)
Figure 3
6. Trump’s new capital gains tax proposal would give 99 percent of its benefits to the top 1 percent
President Trump has recently floated
a proposal to cut the top capital gains rate—a tax paid on the profit received from selling a capital asset such as stocks, bonds, or properties—from 20 percent to 15 percent. Capital gains taxes
already receive preferential tax treatment compared with ordinary income from wages or salaries. According to
IRS data from 2018, only the wealthiest 0.8 percent of Americans had any capital gains or dividends in the current 20 percent tax bracket. As such, cutting the top rate on these assets would almost exclusively benefit the wealthy. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy
estimates that a full 99 percent of the tax cut would go to the richest 1 percent.
The uber-wealthy within the top 1 percent would see the largest benefits from each of these two policies. According to a Center for American Progress
analysis based on 2017 tax data, if the top capital gains rate were reduced to 15 percent and the net investment income tax were repealed as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to repeal the ACA, the highest-income 0.001 percent of Americans—those with incomes exceeding $63.4 million per year—would receive a windfall of nearly $14 billion: an average tax cut of more than $9.6 million per person.
Conclusion
The Trump administration’s tax policies have substantially reduced revenues and funneled tax breaks to the wealthiest households. Instead of genuine tax reform that would end loopholes and gaming opportunities to ensure that large corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share, the Trump administration’s tax policies cut rates and carved out new loopholes for the wealthy to exploit. Reversing these harmful tax policies should be a top priority for Congress and the next administration.
Galen Hendricks is a research assistant for Economic Policy at the Center for American Progress.
The article talks about wealthy business owners, not business owners who are not wealthy. Your comment is irrelevant since the tax reduction was for wealthy people.
Try to read and then you will understand.
