$1.5 Trillion GOP Tax Cut Thread

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

This wealthy wank is going to crash the economy.

It seems that's the only way Americans are going to be weaned from Trumpism -let them suffer from the effects of his policies.  If they're not going to listen to the mainstream media, they will listen to their pocketbooks, at least.

Thing is, this is unlikely to cause any short term pain. The ill effects will largely happen after Trump's term, when Democrats will suffer the consequences of passing the measures needed to deal with this mess.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

BLS already maintains COL figures by zip code, so it wouldn't be a heavy lift to incorporate this into the tax code and would promote individual choices for where people live.

Why should I, a person who lives where home prices are reasonable, subsidize excessive prices elsewhere? $500,000 is a luxury home where I live. Lakefront property or the like.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Don't like the implications on the deficit probably getting bigger but.....

do like the lower class tax cuts I would benefit from?

Guess I'm thinking more like the average voter on that 2nd one

What lower class tax cuts?  Even the middle class tax cuts in this proposal are puny in comparison to the largess for the upper class.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Don't like the implications on the deficit probably getting bigger but.....

do like the lower class tax cuts I would benefit from?

Guess I'm thinking more like the average voter on that 2nd one

What lower class tax cuts?  Even the middle class tax cuts in this proposal are puny in comparison to the largess for the upper class.

Are you kidding me


If your taxable income is in between 38k-90k your tax rate will drop from 25% all the way down to 12% , and the rich do not get a tax cut(people making a million or more tax rate will still be 39.6%)

You're forgetting, perhaps purposefully, the elimination of the estate tax and, and the cut to 25% or less in taxes on pass through income such as that Trump gets from his business.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Why should small businesses pay taxes at the income level, that makes no sense. We need more small businesses not less.

Since when is The Trump Organization a small business!?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I did a bunch of scenario analysis of 2018 tax year for a family of 3 at different income levels and different locations.  As expected the impact of the proposed tax changes differ greatly depending on lactation.

What does breastfeeding have to do with it?

More seriously, your analysis fails to take into account the tax breaks on pass-through income and how people will restructure their current revenue and expenses to take advantage of the changed tax code.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

just pass the plan you outlined please . Its a a good tax plan , please dont ruin it.

Translation: It helps me personally, so who cares about the damage it does to the public fisc.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

It also discourages divorce by making alimony payments after tax versus the receiver of alimony pay tax.

If you really think alimony is a significant factor in whether to get a divorce, or even in the behavior that leads to alimony being granted, I pity you.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

If a tax cut plan does pass, I'd rather it be this one:

Middle class biggest winners in Senate tax plan, study says

You must be logged in to read this quote.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/12/tax-middle-class-republicans-244815

Does this tax plan still tax graduate students for their tuition remission?

It's a mixed bag. 

Yeah, there's no way I can support this travesty of a bill. Getting taxed for nearly $50k on the $16k you're actually earning is just simply not feasible.

So what you're saying is that a year of grad school isn't actually worth the $30+ sticker price? Regardless of whether it's feasible, there's no denying that it is income. Income is not the same as cash flow. This is far from the most painful example of that. If you get a debt cancelled because the lender figures you'll never pay them back, the debt cancellation is treated as taxable income and Uncle Sam has ways of making you pay that aren't available to private lenders.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

1) No, it's not worth it, but that's not the issue at hand.
2) It is not income. I am not seeing that money, and I don't have the ability to invest it or use it as I wish as if it were actual income.
3) This is not a debt cancellation; this is a waving of charging you something (100% discount). By your logic, states should start taxing coupon sales and the like (Buy 1, Get 1 Free [+taxes on what you didn't pay]). Got a discount? Pay taxes on the full price even though the price you're paying is lower. It's ridiculous.

1) Actually that is exactly the issue at hand.
2) I repeat, since you clear ignored the point, income is not synonymous with cash flow. You've chosen a job which includes payment of your tuition as part of the pay package.
3) I never said it was the same as debt cancellation. I used that as an example of income that doesn't involve cash flow. What it is, is an employee benefit. Some benefits get taxed, some don't. This change involves changing it from tax-free to taxable. Incidentally, unless they're getting rid of the entire employer educational benefit provision, the first $5,250 of assistance each year will still be tax-free, just as it would be if you were getting tuition assistance from any other employer. For that matter, with a little creative accounting, they might be able to split your job among multiple employers, say by having you hired by the professor you're assisting for each course/field of research, so as to get that $5,250 multiple times,  assuming you assist more than one professor.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Whether we should spend more on education (and I agree we should) is a separate issue as to whether we do the spending via the tax code. In general, we should get rid of tax expenditures.

Besides, I've seen this argument before. It used to be that even the cash you were getting was tax-free. Taxing it would destroy higher education said the higher education lobbyists. Doesn't look too destroyed, does it?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Whether we should spend more on education (and I agree we should) is a separate issue as to whether we do the spending via the tax code. In general, we should get rid of tax expenditures.

Besides, I've seen this argument before. It used to be that even the cash you were getting was tax-free. Taxing it would destroy higher education said the higher education lobbyists. Doesn't look too destroyed, does it?

Well, you tell me, based on the information I've given you, how am I supposed to live with that kind of a tax burden? I'm all for taxing appropriately and for the right purposes, but this is abuse.

An institution can survive fiscal blows due to sheer size and budget, but an individual and overworked graduate student will not. Institutions depend on grad students to keep them running.

Then they'll have to pay them more, won't they?  At the end of the day, this will have minimal impact on grad students, tho I'll admit it'll have some short-term pain that could be eased by phasing in the change over several years.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Then they'll have to pay them more, won't they?

Hahahahaha, good one. Somehow I'm not seeing a public university finding more money for grad students, especially non-STEM ones.

So you're saying universities have been overpaying their grad student assistants since they could have gotten them for less?  Doubtful.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Then they'll have to pay them more, won't they?

Hahahahaha, good one. Somehow I'm not seeing a public university finding more money for grad students, especially non-STEM ones.

So you're saying universities have been overpaying their grad student assistants since they could have gotten them for less?  Doubtful.

You have way too much faith in muh free market working like an Econ 101 textbook pretends it does.

As I said earlier in the thread, I remember all the sturm und drang concerning all the dire effects of making the cash part of what graduate assistants receive taxable.  We've been here before and it wasn't the end of the world.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The Economist backs repealing the SALT deduction, and as a Very Serious Person™ who bases his opinion exclusively on what The Economist says I now officially endorse repealing the SALT deduction .

While not a concern at current tax rates, there is a very good reason for the SALT deduction, to keep the Federal government from starving State and Local governments of tax revenue by taxing it all.  Back when the top brackets were being taxed at 90% or more, the SALT deduction was essential.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Just a reminder: if you’re married and making under $260,000 annually, you get a tax cut or at least break even. Single and under $200,000, same deal.

I really don’t get why this is “cutting taxes for the millionaires and billionaires.”

Because taxes is more than just the tax rates, but also what gets taxed, and the elimination of deductions means that the amount of income getting taxed is increasing under both the House and Senate bills.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

How tax reform will affect me depends on the future phases of my life.

Currently - Net loss of 2-3K under House plan, gain of 4-5K under Senate plan. 

In 2-3 years when I will go into semi-retirement by working part time and DW completely retires - gain of 4-5K under House Plan and gain of 4-5K under Senate plan mostly because AMT goes away.

In 5-6 years when I will completely retire but live in Scarsdale until my kid goes to college - loss of 6K-7K under House plan and loss of 7K-8K under Senate plan mostly due to loss of deductions of real estate taxes will shift what rates my qualified dividends will be taxed at.

In 11-12 years when I will move to FL in retirement - gain of 4-5K under House Plan and gain of 4-5K under Senate plan mostly because of the larger standard deduction and lower rates.

Overall this plan is a plus for us and it goes through most likely I will work part time a bit longer I had planned to make up for some of the losses I will incur under this plan when I go into full retirement but still live in high tax Scarsdale.

Tell me, do you ever consider anything other than your own narrow self-interest in such matters or do you think worrying about the effects upon society, the economy, and the long-term fiscal health of the government is for suckers?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I am fully responsible for planning for my retirement and it is on me to figure out what risk I want to take, not for the government to bail me out.

I find it amusing that you continue to be so self-centered even as you try to show you aren't.

I'll grant it would be better to turn the various tax expenditures into actual expenditures so as to simplify the tax code, but since that's not in the cards,  You give not a single thought to the fact that few people have the resources to be fully responsible for their retirement.  Your support for eliminating the marriage penalty/benefit is apparently based on nothing but abstract reasoning with no consideration of what led to it to begin with. (In particular, the desire to keep people from gaming the tax system by arbitrarily assigning income/assets where it would reduce taxes.)

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The Republican party just died. Congrats politically to Democrats but terrible economically for the country.

Watch the stock market.

It did great under Obama for 8 years. That wasn't good enough for you though, was it?

Most Americans don't own any stocks.

They might not own them directly, but a fair number do indirectly thru their retirement funds, if they have them.

So far the after-market activity has been for it to be down slightly.  The market appears to have already priced in the passage of the tax cut.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Uh oh, collins refuses to say she will support final bill. Says she has to wait and see.

wow, is she changing her mind?

Who knows what will come out of conference?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The removal of Salt deductions would screw over alot of upper middle class families in high tax states. Im glad some progress is being made to lessen the blow.

But if that were your concern then I assume you would have opposed the Obamacare tax increase on income over 200K/250K. Because it is the same set of people. 

Being part of the top 5% does not make you part of the middle class, not even the upper middle.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The removal of Salt deductions would screw over alot of upper middle class families in high tax states. Im glad some progress is being made to lessen the blow.

But if that were your concern then I assume you would have opposed the Obamacare tax increase on income over 200K/250K. Because it is the same set of people. 

Being part of the top 5% does not make you part of the middle class, not even the upper middle.

At what level does the upper middle class end? $150,000? $100,000?

I'd say roughly $150,000 or $200,000 for a definition based on household income depending on  whether you consider the upper class to be the top 10% or top 5%.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Not everyone lives in overpriced NYC, thankfully. Around here, $200K/year would allow a family of four to spend a measly 10% of their income on a 15-year mortgage and get a very nice home in an excellent school district. If they spent a more typical 30% on housing, they'd be able to easily get a new house in a lake-front gated community with a 20-year mortgage.