Puntos claves:
- El plan de Trump no recortaría los impuestos de las familias de clase media. Se los subiría.
- El plan perjudicaría la situación financiera de muchas familias trabajadoras.
- Los más ricos son los únicos que se beneficiarían del plan republicano.
QUE NO SE TE PASE
Donald Trump Wants to Raise Your Taxes | New York Times
By David Leonhardt
October 29, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/29/opinion/trump-raise-taxes.html
The old formula for passing a big tax cut for the rich was simple: Package it with a modest tax cut for the middle class — and talk endlessly about the middle-class part.
President Trump and Congress are following the formula in some ways. Their plan would deliver an average tax cut of $700,000 to the nation’s 175,000 richest families. That’s enough for each to buy a new 50-foot yacht, annually. Meanwhile, Trump and other Republican leaders keep repeating “middle class,” “middle class,” “middle class.”
Yet there is also a major difference between the current plan and George W. Bush’s tax cut or Ronald Reagan’s. Trump’s plan would not actually cut taxes for many middle-class families. It would raise them.
These families are in the minority, yes. But there are a lot of them. About 17 percent of households earning between $50,000 and $150,000 would see their taxes rise immediately, according to the only rigorous analysis so far, by the Tax Policy Center. Among households earning between $150,000 and $250,000, the share is about 35 percent.
These numbers would grow over time, for reasons I’ll explain. Ultimately, the plan would be likely to hurt the finances of the vast majority of Americans. No wonder it is starting to look politically vulnerable.
[…] To understand the Trump tax increases, you should first acknowledge the most admirable feature of his plan. It doesn’t aspire to be merely a tax cut. It aspires to be tax reform — both cuts and increases. Some deductions shrink, while rates fall, in the name of simplifying the tax code.
But after this promising start, the plan commits its cardinal sin. It places the highest priority on huge tax cuts for the very wealthy. They get lower rates and get to keep cherished tax breaks, like the “carried interest” loophole. Herbert Hoover’s Republican Party wanted to put a chicken in every pot. Donald Trump’s wants to put a yacht at every private dock.
Having lavished so much money on the wealthy, the tax package — or at least the vague framework that the administration has released — doesn’t have much remaining to spend on middle class and poor families. For them, the package is a mix of pluses and minuses. Many face a lower tax rate, but some face a higher one, and many families lose deductions.
The combination creates a lot of losers. Reduced deductions for children, for example, hurt large families, notes N.Y.U.’s Lily Batchelder. And the deduction for state and local taxes — also a target for cuts — now benefits 30 percent of households nationwide. It was the main reason for last week’s House defections, and the tensions over it haven’t been resolved.
[…] Trump and his allies are feverishly trying to claim their plan really would benefit the middle class. Their latest talking point is the notion that corporate tax cuts will create an indirect windfall for workers. Funny, though, how the wealthy get most of the direct benefits, while everyone else has to hope for indirect ones somehow to materialize.
[…]