BEYOND THE NUMBERS
Roundup: CBPP’s Analyses of the Senate Tax Plan
The Senate Finance Committee’s tax bill would overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy and corporations while eventually raising taxes on many low- and middle-income families. We’ve collected our analyses of the bill here.
The revised tax bill from Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch takes his original bill — which already provided large tax cuts to the wealthy and profitable corporations, raised taxes on millions of households, and did little if anything for millions more — and makes it even worse in very basic ways. The Chairman’s revisions to his original bill reflect the fundamental tradeoff at the core of every Republican tax plan of recent weeks: large, permanent tax cuts for profitable corporations, along with tax changes that don’t help or even hurt low- and moderate-income families.
JCT Estimates: Amended Senate Tax Bill Skewed to Top, Hurts Many Low- and Middle-Income Americans
The amended tax bill that Senate Finance Committee Chairman Hatch released on November 14 is even more skewed to the wealthy than the bill he released on November 9, estimates from the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) show, and its tilt would worsen over time. By 2027, when many of its provisions would have expired, those at the top would still get large tax cuts, but every income group below $75,000 would face tax increases, on average.
Senate Tax Bill Could Prove Costlier Than Official Estimate
JCT estimates that Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch’s revised tax bill would lose $1.4 trillion between 2018 and 2027, but begin to raise revenue starting in 2027. If policymakers in the future extend the tax cuts that would expire after 2025 and stop the tax hikes that would take effect starting in 2026, we estimate that the bill would cost roughly $1.9 trillion over the decade and lose more than $200 billion in 2027.
The Senate Finance Committee bill’s repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that people get health coverage or pay a penalty would add 13 million people to the uninsured and increase premiums by about 10 percent to pay for tax cuts for the top 0.1 percent.
Alexander-Murray Legislation Can’t Undo the Severe Harm Resulting From Individual Mandate Repeal
Some Senate Republicans have suggested that the harmful effects of eliminating the mandate — increased premiums, greater instability in the individual market, and millions more uninsured — could be mitigated if Congress also adopted the bipartisan individual market reform package introduced by Senators Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray. But nothing in the bill could undo the damage that would result from repealing the individual mandate.
- Yes, the Massive Coverage Losses From Repealing the Individual Mandate Would Be Harmful
- Repealing Individual Mandate Would Hurt, Not Help, Low- and Moderate-Income People
Senate Tax Bill’s Child Tax Credit Increase Provides Only Token Help to Millions of Children in Low-Income Working Families (with state-by-state data)
The recently revised Senate Republican tax bill would increase the maximum Child Tax Credit from the current $1,000 to $2,000 per child – up from $1,650 in the prior version — but low-income working families would largely miss out on the increase, just as in the earlier version. Indeed, in revising the proposal, Senate Finance Committee Chair Orrin Hatch increased the cost of the proposal by about $13 billion per year, but did nothing for the millions of low- and moderate-income working families that would get only token help under the prior proposal.
Senate’s “Pass-Through” Tax Cut Favors Biggest Businesses and Wealthiest Owners
The Senate Finance Committee bill includes a tax cut for “pass-through” businesses that’s heavily skewed to the biggest businesses and the wealthiest business owners.
Senate Tax Bill Has Same Basic Flaws as House Bill
The Senate Finance Committee tax bill, like the Republican tax framework released in September and the House Ways and Means Committee tax bill, would drive up deficits by $1.5 trillion over the next decade and give very large tax cuts to the wealthiest households and profitable corporations but only token help to millions of low-income working families.
Senate Tax Plan’s End to SALT Deduction a Poor Trade for Tax Cuts for Wealthy
The Senate Finance Committee tax plan would eliminate the federal deduction for state and local taxes, which lets taxpayers who itemize deductions deduct state and local property taxes and either state and local income taxes or general sales taxes, and use the revenue to pay for cutting income tax rates. That trade would be a bad deal for most Americans, especially low- and middle-income people.
Doubling Estate Tax Exemption Would Give Windfall to Heirs of Wealthiest Estates
The bill would double the value of estates that’s exempt from the estate tax, from $11 million per couple ($5.5 million per person) to $22 million per couple ($11 million per person). That would cut the share of estates facing the tax from 2 in 1,000 to fewer than 1 in 1,000 and give each of the 1,800 very largest estates a tax cut of $4.4 million per couple.
GOP Making Highly Unrealistic Claims for Wage Gains From Tax Cuts
In a post for US News & World Report’s Economic Intelligence, CBPP’s Chad Stone discusses how Republicans’ claims that their tax cuts will give American workers a large pay raise don’t stand up to scrutiny.
