Montana Budget and Policy Center: Winners and losers in tax plan

Dec 05, 2017

By MBPC Staff

Missoula Current - December 4, 2017

In mid-November, the House passed a tax plan that would add $1.5 trillion to the federal deficit and increase taxes on working and middle-class people to pay for permanent tax cuts for large corporations and the super wealthy. The proposal also sets up deep cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, education, and SNAP that would add to the pain families feel as a result of this bill.

The Senate bill has the same basic flaws as the House bill, but this time the tax legislation also includes a direct attack on the Affordable Care Act, resulting in millions of Americans losing coverage. Let’s take a closer look at who are the real winners and losers in the Senate tax plan:

WINNERS

The Super Wealthy: Despite all of the talk about helping the middle class, wealthy individuals and their heirs win big from the Senate tax plan. The top tax rate for millionaires has been shaved down to 38.5 percent from 39.6 percent, while the exemption from the estate tax—which is a an inheritance tax on multi-million dollar estates—doubles to $11 million for individuals and $22 million for couples. The Senate bill also eliminates the alternative minimum tax (AMT), a levy aimed at ensuring that higher-earning people pay at least some tax.

By 2025 (when most of the Senate bill’s provisions would be in place), high-income households would get the largest tax cuts as a share of after-tax income, on average. Meanwhile households with incomes below $30,000 would, on average, face a tax increase.

Multi-National Corporations: The Senate bill slashes the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent, going into effect in 2019. U.S. oil companies with foreign operations would pay reduced taxes under the Senate bill on their income from sales of oil and natural gas abroad. Beer, wine and liquor producers would also reap tax reductions under the Senate measure. Like the House bill, the Senate bill creates a lower corporate tax rate for multinationals’ foreign profits. That’s a big incentive for companies to shift profits and investments offshore to get the lower rate, and it advantages large multinationals compared to small, domestic firms.

The Senate bill makes all these tax cuts for corporations and multinationals permanent—paying for that by repealing the individual mandate and making millions more uninsured, even while allowing provisions that are intended to benefit middle-income families expire at the end of 2025.

Losers

Montanans with Health Care Needs: The Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate would be repealed, which would cause 13 million more Americans to be uninsured and raise individual market premiums by 10 percent. The individual mandate is critical to keeping individual market coverage affordable and keeping the individual market stable. The $338 billion in savings from repealing the individual mandate are being used to pay for making part of the Senate bill’s corporate tax rate cut permanent, which overwhelmingly benefits high-income households: the top 0.1 percent of households would get an average tax cut of about $100,000 annually.

Working Folks: Many families making less than $30,000 a year would face tax increases starting in 2021 under the Senate bill, according to Congress’ nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. 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.

Working Families with Children: The Senate plan’s signature “middle class” tax cut, its Child Tax Credit (CTC) increase, provides almost no benefit ($75 or less) to 10 million children in low-income working families, and provides less than the full $1,000 increase in the credit to millions more. At the same time, it newly extends the full $2,000 per child credit to couples with incomes between $110,000 and $500,000. Even this meager increase would be temporary, as the Senate tax plan ends the entire CTC increase after 2025. Low-income working adults without children and non-custodial parents are also largely excluded from the plan’s tax cuts, so millions would continue to be taxed into or deeper into poverty.

Charities: Charities that support low-income families and supplement government services are nervous about the impact of doubling the standard deduction. The National Council of Nonprofits warns that charitable deductions are likely to go down under this bill. While the GOP enables the wealthy to continue deducting their charitable giving, many middle- and upper-middle-class families would no longer get that tax break, because they probably would stop itemizing their deductions. At the moment about 30 percent of Americans itemize, but under the GOP bill, the standard deduction roughly doubles from $6,350 to $12,000 for individuals and $12,700 to $24,000 for married couples, meaning fewer people would probably itemize.

All of us in Montana: About half of Montana’s budget comes from federal funding. If these cuts become law, state policymakers will have to find ways to pay for health care, food aid, grants for college, and more. Thanks to low revenue due to our own trickle-down policies, it is highly unlikely Montana will make up the difference. This tax proposal on top of our current budget crisis in the state will be devastating to our economy, our communities, and our families that are already struggling.