I don’t think anyone has posted about this lately, but tax returns are going to be fewer and smaller this year, mainly because some Trump advisors decided to be clever:
[…] The Government Accountability Office warned last summer that the number of tax filers who receive refunds was likely to drop for the 2018 tax year, while the number of filers who owe money would rise.
The GAO pointed to an IRS estimate that about 4.6 million fewer filers would receive refunds this tax filing season. Another 4.6 million filers were likely to owe money who had not had that experience in the past. […]
Many Americans may confuse their meager refunds as a sign that they paid more in taxes as a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Generally, that is not true.
According to the Tax Policy Center, 80 percent of filers received a tax cut, and about 5 percent wound up paying more in federal income taxes. The tax cuts showed up in fatter weekly or biweekly paychecks for most Americans, but few people noticed, according to polling.
“There’s a difference between taxes and your refund,” said Joseph Rosenberg, a senior research associate at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute. “People generally got a piece of their tax cut last year gradually in the form of lower withholding on their paychecks.”
In short, these clever clogs decided that Josephine/Joe Average Taxpayer would rather have a few bucks more a month and a smaller refund, mainly because they wanted to crow about the immediate results of the “tax cut” on people’s paychecks. But J/J Average Taxpayer, in my experience, treats their refund like a savings account, and therefore appreciates a bigger refund that s/he can spend in one place. A few bucks more in the paycheck every couple of weeks just disappears. (Paul Campos at LGM has the details on the “endowment effect” if you want a more sophisticated analysis.)
The timing of this couldn’t be worse for Trump – he’s in a position where a lot of his soft support is looking for a good excuse to dump him. Two years of his clown show makes it a bit embarrasing to admit you voted for Trump, even if many of your peers committed the same mistake. A smaller-than-usual tax refund is a great reason to dump Trump and vote for whatever alternative comes down the pike.
Another lesson from this debacle is that policies that give people money should give them an appreciable amount of money. Standing up and saying you saved taxpayers billions doesn’t have as much impact when those billions are parceled out in pennies per week rather than provided in a lump sum.
PsiFighter37
Well, I am one of those special voters who is seeing both a decreased paycheck AND paying more out of pocket at tax time…basically the kind of middle-upper class Northeastern voter the GOP deliberately screwed in their corporate tax giveaway.
raven
I’m sure people here are tired of hearing it but I got back more than last year and I got it last week.
Flanders Other Neighbor
IRS has a whole publication devoted to this and warns of incorrect withholding causing problems. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p5307.pdf
Kraux Pas
I guess I’m lucky, then. I got a bigger refund than usual and my boyfriend got a healthy refund this year when last year he owed.
Another Scott
Yeah, GHWB’s “tax cut” (which was mostly a change in withholding) didn’t help him much come election day in 1992.
I hope most people remember this stuff come election day…
Cheers,
Scott.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Even worse when said tax payer goes from getting a refund to owing money without changing their withholdings.
Zinsky
Completely agree, mistermix. Thanks for the link, as well – very interesting. I am a retired CPA and I know that people, even intelligent, well-read people, can be complete morons when it comes to taxes. The GOP’s claim that the “average tax refund” from their laughably mislabeled tax reform was “about $4,000” is akin to saying that when Bill Gates walks into a room with 19 homeless men the “average net worth” of every man in the room is “about $5 billion”. Averages are skewed by outliers.
Snarki, child of Loki
“Trump stole my tax refund to give to millionaires!”
scottinnj
To be fair, Obama did the same with the social security holiday when withholding was reduced to 4.2% from 6.2% as part of the stimulus act of 2009 (*). This gave a household with $50k of income an extra $1k per annum or $20/week. The wonky thinking was that people may not notice the extra $20/week and because they notice it less they are likely to spend it on stuff. Which with an economy in recession is what you want! Alternatively they could have mailed everyone a check for say $1000 – which is what Bush 43 did. But those might be saved, not spent. But politically it might have been smarter to send a $1k check. Easier to run on ‘hey when the GOP ran the economy in the ground I sent you a thousand bucks
‘ rather than ‘it was me that gave you the extra $20 that you barely noticed in the paycheck .
I’m also interested to see if there will be tax penalties. If you owe money, you may be subject to a tax penalty. Generally, however, if you had withheld taxes in 2018 equal to your tax liability in 2017, you wouldn’t owe the penalty. Many taxpayers will see lower tax withholding in 2018 due to the tax cut, and will owe money, and may also owe the penalty because they can’t say that what they had withheld in 2018 was equal to the 2017 actual tax. The actual math gets a bit complicated.
(*) yes i know social security withholding is generally not part of your tax return, but the same concept applies.
Betty Cracker
It’ll be a glorious karmic payback if Trump and the GOP get hammered over this issue come 2020. Their Donor Tax Relief Act was wildly unpopular with the proles and didn’t stop them from getting wiped out in the midterms, and now this.
I think it’s a real thing in Wingnut World: Fox & Friends had a segment this morning to try to tamp down outrage. A guest went over the withholding mechanisms, scolded people for not adjusting theirs and tried to sell viewers on how smart it is to save that money yourself rather than giving the IRS an “interest-free loan.”
That’s true as far as it goes, but “if you’re explaining, you’re losing” is a non-partisan axiom. Crash and burn, mofos!
stinger
@Snarki, child of Loki: There’s a bumper sticker.
kindness
Meh. It’s the media that matters most. They paint the picture more Americans believe than don’t. Example: I went to NYC this weekend for a family event. I bought and read the NY Times while there. In every article, the Times subtely shaded the presentation to give Republican positions the benefit of the doubt and questioned Democrats honesty/integrity. They create the meme. This is just one more reason why I am so happy I don’t pay money to those monsters with a subscription.
Hard to win debates with those that buy ink by the barrel.
Lofgren
Of course, billionaires don’t get a refund, so this never would have occurred to them.
tokyokie
I used to do income tax returns, and it strikes me that all these analyses are not including those at the very bottom of the tax brackets who receive the Earned Income Credit. Those taxpayers formerly not only qualified for getting most of their withholding back, but, depending on their income and number of dependents, a refundable tax credit of up to $5,000. For someone who’s only pulling down $10,000 a year, a check for Uncle Sam for, say, $2,500 is a huge windfall, and they’ve usually made major economic decisions such as when to get the car fixed in reliance on receiving that windfall. If they find that significantly reduced, they’re going to be livid.
SenyorDave
I have very limited sympathy for people who actually received a tax cut but have problems this year because they didn’t change their withholding. It is their responsibility to make that change, and if they are too lazy or financially illiterate, its on them. There are too many people struggling to make ends meet in this country.
cmorenc
A key point to remember about Trump ’16 voters and the supposedly unshakable grip he has on most of them is that it only takes a very modest mid-single digit % erosion from his support to be fatal to his chances for reelection. His grip on most of his ’16 supporters may still be strong, but the width and distribution of his support was just barely enough to win him the electoral college in 2016, and he would have lost had only one or two percent of his voters in Mich, Wisc, and Pa peeled off – not even for Hillary, but for e.g. a third party candidate.
We only have to bring to the light a relatively small portion of those who voted for him to dramaticlly undermine his electoral viability – the 95% who may stubbornly stick with him aren’t enough for Trump to win reelection.
mere mortal
It’s painful to say, but I really do have a bit of sympathy for the Trump people about this.
Probably because I was the only person I knew who increased my exemption on the W4 because I didn’t feel like loaning the government money when they would never do the same for me.
bbleh
Look, the guy went bankrupt FOUR times running CASINOS. He may be a master of the lowest forms of politics — division and bullying — but when it comes to operations, policy, things that require actual thought, well, not so much.
GregMulka
My return is waiting until the 15th to be accepted because children. So that will be in time for the next shutdown.
I think I saw something like a $10 per paycheck increase in take home which lined up exactly how much my refund dropped. I pay in extra because I hate getting a tax-bill.
I’m more concerned about the phase-outs of anything useful for the vast majority of tax payers over the next five years.
wvng
@scottinnj: You beat me to it. Obama’s plan was smart economics, and was more likely to generate the badly needed economic stimulus than millions of $1000 checks, but was terrible politics. Very few people knew it happened, and the tea baggers were out there saying he raised their taxes.
MattF
My income sources changed drastically last year (I retired in April ’18), so I have no idea what my refund will be. Or if I’ll even get one. I think it’s likely that I will– I withheld income at every opportunity– but who knows? Not I.
Butch
I’m wearying really quickly of the “experts” on TV warning that you should check your withholding. A little late for that advice, guys.
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
Exactly this.
And for those who are being a bit smug about knowing what to do about their withholding, first, you aren’t helping. Better to express sympathy and make sure they know it was the GOPers and Trump who did this to them with their billionaire tax cut. Second, you don’t seem to understand that your behavior is the outlier among the general population. You are completely unaware of how financially illiterate most Americans are, even the most successful and well-off among us. I work as a financial aid officer at a large public university and can attest, over 20 years of work here, that most parents, let alone the young adults they produced, have no idea how taxes work or whatever the relationship of their withholding to their refund is. I don’t necessarily blame them. Even I sometimes don’t understand all of it. And I don’t have children or many of the responsibilities they have and I am a political junkie, which few of the average college students or parents I meet are. All they know is that they depend every year on that refund for various reasons and now they aren’t getting one and may actually owe money or their refund is much smaller than they ever anticipated. It’s a perfect storm to send at the GOP and Trump in advance of 2020. People will forget a lot of things, but they won’t forget this.
MrSnrub
@scottinnj: I’ve seen some comments that the penalties for under reporting were suspended or reduced, but I haven’t seen anything official.
Aimai
@scottinnj: it is not ironic at all. Obama’s goal was to pump money into the economy and they knew that would happen more effectively if people just spent an imperceptible amount more a week.
Roger Moore
I think you’re backward here about what makes leaving Trump hard, at least in deep red areas. People don’t have any trouble admitting they voted for Trump, because they talked about it so much when it happened and got their peers’ approval for doing so. The hard part is admitting that voting for him might have been a mistake and they shouldn’t do it again. The people who voted for him are the same kind of people who don’t want to admit their ancestors might have made a mistake by backing slavery and secession; admitting their own mistakes among their peers who (apparently) don’t think it’s a mistake either is incredibly hard.
JPL
@PsiFighter37: Several places in and burbs around Atlanta will have the same cap. I’m single and live in a modest ranch, and I’m close to the $5,000 cap.
zhena gogolia
@PsiFighter37:
Yeah, we’re screwed. But I expected no less.
Paul W.
Good points, and while I had heard this story was going around I didn’t realize it affected so many people! 4.5 million each with no refund or owe money is a bigger deal than I thought!
MattF
@Roger Moore: Also, the Fox-watching Trump voter is hammered every day by right-wing pro-Trump propaganda. Changing one’s mind about Trump would make those nice young people on Fox & Friends very sad.
ETA: And those nice young people are friends. It has to be acknowledged that the marketing is brilliant.
Obvious Russian Troll
@geg6: Exactly. I’m in Toronto now, but if I were back in the US I don’t know if I would have thought to change my withholding. This shit (along with most of the tax system) is unnecessarily complex, and the vast majority of people put it in place when they start a job and forget about it afterwards.
I’d add that I personally don’t really have the cycles to deal with this kind of shit except at tax time, and I think a lot of people are like that.
Jinchi
The timing was deliberate, though. It was timed to pay off for the Republicans last November. People were supposed to be thrilled at their higher paychecks during the year, then let down by the smaller refunds this year.
Unfortunately for them, nobody was that impressed with the $20 per month in lower withholding, but they’re furious about the $1000 lower than expected refund.
TriassicSands
Wishful thinking?
I know it’s hard for sincere lefties to believe anyone could support Trump (even racists ought to be able to see the guy’s a dishonest POS who would sell them out in a second), but there is a big difference for Republicans between not liking Trump and voting for a Democrat. Dumping Trump in this country means either not voting or …? What’s more horrifying than Trump to those people? Any Democrat. But particularly a woman or person of color (to most). A few might vote for Sherrod Brown. Five or six.
Sadly, I don’t know anyone who voted for Trump who is or would admit to being embarrassed to have voted for the worst president in history. I’m sure those people exist, but the question is, in the privacy of a voting booth (so to speak) would they actually vote for a Democrat? With uncommon exceptions I doubt their are many.
I hope I’m wrong.
Brachiator
@scottinnj:
No, for many people, this will not be a problem.
You may owe a penalty if your withholding and estimate payments are less than 90 percent of your tax liability. For 2018, this threshold has been lowered to 85 percent.
The Republican Congress voted for a crappy tax bill and the Trump administration totally bungled implementation of the law.
Matt McIrvin
I’m going to get a big hit this year, not so much because of the tax law as because we paid off our mortgage, and no mortgage interest means no mortgage interest deduction. But for the same reason, I’m not too worried about being able to pay it… I was having too much withheld in the first place.
My situation is, shall we say, not typical.
Ryan
“In short, these clever clogs decided that Josephine/Joe Average Taxpayer would rather have a few bucks more a month and a smaller refund, mainly because they wanted to crow about the immediate results of the “tax cut” on people’s paychecks.”
Isn’t this similar to the payroll tax cut during the stimulus. Cut a $500 check like Dubya, or offset some payroll taxes every month for a couple of years? You don’t even have to be an expert or have a viewpoint, you just need to be old enough to remember the polling from 6 years ago.
Juice Box
I do taxes for lower income people as a volunteer with the VITA/AARP program (really fun work, if you like numbers, computers, and the elderly). Tax refunds are disappointingly lower and payments are higher. Everybody is blaming it on Trump even though we live in a district the sent first Randy “Duke” Cunningham (the namesake for TPM’s Golden Duke award) and then Darrell Issa to Congress.
If you haven’t done your taxes yet, you’ll be impressed by another bit of GOP chicanery. They’ve been “simplified” so that they “fit on a postcard”. The first page is a half-sheet, postcard-sized summary and all of the rest of the information that was on the old two page 1040 has been rearranged and spread over several more sheets of paper.
I keep snarling “just to make a silly old man happy!” and everyone laughs and agrees.
oldster
We usually get small refunds. This year we are going to owe about $6000.00
To those of you saying that it’s our fault for not having changed our deductions after the Republicans gamed them, I say: fuck you.
We are not accountants or tax lawyers. No one told us about this. We did not notice any increase in our paychecks. We did everything the same as we always have done, for decades.
And now we are getting slammed with a tax bill that will take us months to pay off.
Oh — I should say that part of this is because we live in a blue state (NY) with high property taxes, so the Republicans intentionally targeted us for persecution.
Barbara
It’s been a while since I lived for my tax refund, but I do remember what it was like. I remember reading an article that did a comparison of investment options and concluded that real estate (buying a house) really wasn’t any better than investing in stocks and bonds for overall return (even taking tax policy into account). But, as with getting the tax refund at once rather than an equivalent amount in small increments throughout the year, the psychology is totally different. Equity in your house builds automatically over time because you HAVE TO pay your monthly mortgage, whereas, you must take a lot of voluntary steps time and again to get the comparable return from financial instruments.
The fact that Trump’s Treasury officials apparently had no idea that this was a thing tells you all you need to know about their affinity for people who work for wages
Ryan
@Juice Box: And that’s another thing. Why “simplify” the paperwork when the physical forms are less relevant each year as more switch to online filing!
Brachiator
@SenyorDave:
You are wrong to withhold your sympathy. And this kind of snap judgment is generally wrong.
The IRS was instructed by their bosses to delay the release of new W4 tables and what they ultimately came up with was confusing and sometimes incorrect because of how it accounted for the repeal of personal and dependent exemptions. Hell, payroll departments could not explain the new tables.
The IRS later came up with a W4 calculator on its website and pestered tax preparers to inform their clients about this, but by this time it was too late for most people to use it and make a difference in their withholding.
The government failed to make compliance easy.
zhena gogolia
@oldster:
Yes, not being able to deduct the property tax is a killer.
Barbara
@oldster: Ugh. I am sorry. I actually feel no schadenfreude at the predicament of people who are being bit in the rear end by this after voting for Trump. The difference between me and them is that I am not surprised and so it only serves as yet more validation of the anger I have already been feeling for two plus years rather than making it spike to new heights.
Betty Cracker
@TriassicSands: We don’t need to persuade lots of Trumpers to vote for Dems. We need them to stay home. I don’t know if this will do it, but it might.
germy
@zhena gogolia:
I thought the new rule was no deductions over $10,000?
We pay a high property tax, but I don’t think we pay over ten grand, so am I wrong here to assume we can still deduct?
My wife is the numbers person in our household. My specialty is opening jars and clearing snow from the driveway.
meander
I see a lot of people saying “why didn’t you just adjust your withholding?” I thought about that and downloaded the form from the IRS last year. But my first thought was “has this been updated to comply with the tax scam?” My second thought was “Damn, this form needs a lot of information.” Like how much I’ll earn in 2018 from wages and investments, my deductions, and a bunch more info that would require 1) digging out 2017 returns, 2) a few of my pay stubs to get a good average, 3) a ton of guessing because I live in California and own a recently purchased house, so expect to get hammered by the limitation of SALT deductability, and 4) Some other guessing. So I decided it wasn’t worth the 1-2 hours of archeology and prognostication and instead made an ad hoc estimated tax payment to the IRS.
Also, this is a place where HR departments might have been helpful, e.g., company-wide demonstrations on how withholding can be recalculated.
Was there a far easier way to adjust withholding that I missed?
Just Chuck
@bbleh:
You don’t launder the money of international criminals by reporting a profit.
Barbara
@germy: SALT was eliminated except for property tax up to $10,000. Our property tax gets close to that but has not exceeded it yet. Nonetheless, we have friends in other states who will be hit hard by this, but especially in New Jersey and New York. There is a reason that New Jersey’s congressional delegation is a lot bluer now than it had been. I can’t believe any New Jersey House member voted for this.
The Moar You Know
@PsiFighter37: I am also one of those special voters, of the Southern California variety. We get an extra ass-reaming this year because my wife is a teacher, and the bill removed all deductions for money spent on classroom expenses. ALL of it.
At least we got a heads up last year from our tax guy that this would happen. Hardcore Republican, framed pic of Reagan on the wall. Hates Trump. Fucking hates him in a way that only a old-school country-club (aspirational) Republican with a Hispanic wife can. White hot. I stopped him last year in the middle of the rant and asked “hey, aren’t I the liberal here?” He blushed. We all laughed. But seriously, he read the legislation and knew what was coming and gave us the warning. Not a lot of GOOD tax guys like that out there.
bemused
GOP Lucy yanks the tax cut football from average folks every single time. You’d think trump and gop voters would have caught on by now but no……
Ruckus
My paycheck is $1.60 per week more. But I’d bet I owe money due to the new way taxes are now figured and what is missing from the 1040 now. It’s simplified all right. I started to do mine the other day and wow. I’m afraid that my plans to retire may just be a joke. So let’s recap the 21 century. First 8 years, repub, and wars that we are still in, military presence such that we are stretched to the max and beyond 15 yrs later – giving systematic problems that will reverb for decades. A recession of proportions second only to the depression with repub ratfucking to stem the government’s ability to stimulate the economy to lessen the cost to everyone except the guys who caused it. Second 8 yrs President Obama, great ideas on how to improve the country, stymied at most avenues by – wait for it repubs, but we got the ACA and a rather crappy recovery from the repub caused recession. Now – a stolen election against the wishes of the majority and ratfucking extraordinaire, a repub ass with his only talents being the ability to fuck up anything he comes within a 50,000 mile radius of and his ability to hire the worst possible people whose only abilities are the same as his.
It’s a great world isn’t it? Where any useless fuck can cheat and bullshit his way into throwing sand in every gear he gets near.
germy
@bemused: I’d wager a majority of republican voters will blame this on the new Democratic House, if they hear someone on morning drive radio tell them that.
JPL
Remember in the olden days when Bush and Greenspan said you shouldn’t pay taxes on taxes, well those days are over.
Brachiator
@meander:
Nope.
Brachiator
@The Moar You Know:
Actually there are lots of them. But a lot of people only hear what they want to hear. Trump’s false promises drowned out everything else.
TriassicSands
@Betty Cracker:
The one thing that will affect a person’s vote is if they suffer or feel they personally have suffered real harm because of a politician. If your neighbor gets screwed you can rationalize it, ignore it, whatever…as long as it doesn’t hurt you directly. But direct harm can make a difference.
Unfortunately, we’re dealing with some pretty perverse people — one would have to be to vote for Trump. So, yes, the hope is that some former Trump voters will at least stay home. I hope that happens. What is depressing is that we would even need to discuss the hope that people would at least stay home. It doesn’t seem irrational to think that after the past two years and the extraordinary demonstration of incompetence given by Trump that there would be even a remote chance that Trump could even get the legendary 27% of wingnuts to vote for him.
Betty, as a gesture of good will couldn’t you package up a 12-15 foot alligator and send it to Trump? I’d help with shipping costs. Label the package “Cheesburgers.” Or “Dinner.” Just don’t tell Trump that “Dinner” is opening the package, not in it.
Will this never end?
tobie
I think every middle-class family in a blue state, and especially in NJ, where you have high property taxes and high state taxes, is going to get a nasty surprise when they do taxes. I live in Maryland and am bracing myself. BTW, I think the fact that people will be smarting from their new tax bill makes it a bad time and bad strategy to talk about taxes on individuals, even if those individuals have benefited from the GOP tax bill at everyone else’s expense. Talk about revising the corporate tax code to put pressure on companies to invest in their workforce and you’ll get a lot more people on board.
zhena gogolia
@germy:
Maybe that’s it — don’t ask me, I just see my husband’s sad face (I shouldn’t be posting on this subject, since it’s based entirely on my husband’s sad face)
New Deal democrat
Those reduced refunds are said to average $170 per filer. There are about 140 million tax filing units. Do the math and you get $24 Billion that probably won’t get spent this spring.
That will make a perceptible dent in the consumer economy — an economy that was already going into a slowdown.
brettvk
The thing that really made me grind my teeth during the whole legislative debacle was the tweet Paul Ryan put out, about the school secretary who was so grateful to him for the extra $1.50/week in her paycheck, because it would cover her Costco membership. The utter contempt for non-rich Americans embodied in that just curdles my soul.
LarryB
I live in a high-tax state (California) and I calculated my Federal taxes went up about half of a percent this year. If my wife didn’t have a 1099 from her side business I could have filed a 1040EZ, for all the good my deductions did me. Also, a really good ham sandwich is hard.
chopper
my taxes aren’t totally hosed this year, which makes me lucky. it’d be great if they didn’t get rid of personal and dependent exemptions tho.
Steve in the ATL
@oldster:
Damn straight.
TriassicSands
I feel for all the people (who didn’t vote for Trump) who are having troubles over taxes. It seems like the key point here is that the Trump Reich doesn’t do anything to help people understand changes. Quite the contrary. A confused populace is more controllable.
From here on out, it would probably be wise for everyone to exercise heightened vigilance with anything involving the Trump administration. Their MO is the scam in one form or another and people really do have to fend for themselves.
Nothing can be taken for granted except the dishonesty and venality of Trump and his fellow crooks.
chopper
@geg6:
likewise, there are many people out there who’s situation hasn’t changed in years. they don’t check and change their withholding because they have no reason to.
Brachiator
@LarryB:
The IRS got rid of the Forms 1040A and 1040-EZ this year.
Truth.
chopper
@Ryan:
they lowered withholding to make everyone’s paychecks a little bigger as a stunt to juice GOP numbers for the 2018 election. the idea that they’d pay for it the april after was probably considered but they wanted to keep the house.
it didn’t work, and now they’re paying the price for it this year. couldn’t happen to a shittier bunch of assholes.
chopper
@Brachiator:
and not everybody has a fuckin’ accountant. in fact i’d wager the vast majority of americans don’t.
chopper
@TriassicSands:
the salient fact of all of this is that the tax bill was written to screw over blue states especially. the idea was to give rich people a tax cut and make democrats pay for it. which really is the ultimate GOP policy, innit.
Ol'Froth
I am well aware that receiving a refund means you gave the government an interest free loan, but the way I look at it, having maximum withholding guarantees that I’ll save money, when a few extra dollars every two weeks MIGHT get saved, or will PROBABLY be spent on something. My refund is 1.5K less this year, and I have no idea what I spent the extra $57 and change on that I received in each paycheck.
trnc
@Betty Cracker:
I hope you’re right, but if it’s the media blasting out “YOU REALLY GOT A TAX CUT! REALLY, YOU DID!,” then the loser stench isn’t attached directly to the administration. I knew as soon as I read about this that wingnuts who think nuance is down there with lattes and arugula will suddenly become experts in the finer points of tax law.
ETA: The nuance that people will never hear from the villagers is the straight line that can be drawn from tax cuts for billionaires to higher property taxes and crumbling schools and roads for everyone else.
Brachiator
@chopper:
This is the simplistic, macroeconomics story that was easy for dumb and lazy reporters to cover. Another way of looking at what the GOP did:
The GOP tax bill gave massive tax cuts and benefits to corporations and to the wealthiest taxpayers.
The GOP tax bill greatly favors investment income and self-employment income over wage income.
The GOP tax bill punishes lower income tax payers and the working poor by limiting or eliminating credits they previously could use.
The GOP tax bill took credits and deductions away from lower and middle income taxpayers in order to fund tax benefits for the wealthiest taxpayers.
The GOP tax bill makes it harder for people to rise into the middle class or higher.
Yep. This is a good year for people to use an accountant, an enrolled agent, or HR Block or a similar good tax prep service.
Ruckus
@bemused:
As long as those people fall harder than they do they will vote for the shittiest republicans that stand up and lie to them. Didn’t you know that all politicians are the same so that’s their logic, such as it is.
Steve in the ATL
@chopper:
And for some of us who have one, he’s in a Brazilian prison!
Donky Oatie
@Betty Cracker:
It’s just another example, and a big one, of how out-of-touch the Rightwing Rich are with the vast, vast majority of voters. Fundamentally, the tax “reform” required that people take action (adjusting withholding) that actually benefitted them very little at the time and not much more in the event. Asking people to make an effort just so that YOUR program minimal affects them is…stupid.
The Rightwing Rich have accountants for this piddly crap – if it affected them at all (most at that level don’t draw paychecks per se, so all of this is moot to them). They probably honestly don’t understand what all the hubbub is.
Just another step towards the guillotines.
chopper
@Steve in the ATL:
you’re not secretly john mcafee, are you?
Mutant Poodle
Let’s not forget that Paul Ryan CELEBRATED the higher take home ($1.50 a week!) in a now famous tweet that was later deleted.
Steve in the ATL
@chopper: well, it’s not secret anymore now that you’ve doxxed me!
Ruckus
@Steve in the ATL:
And I was going to say that you weren’t. Dumbass.
Steve in the ATL
@Ruckus: mierda!
John in Belize, I mean Steve in the ATL
ProfDamatu
I just want to check my understanding here. It kind of sounds like there wasn’t really a tax cut at all (i.e., a rate cut), but that withholding was just decreased, so that if you were paying attention you might notice a little extra in your paycheck. How is that a tax cut, if all they’re doing is withholding less, to the point that lots of people who used to get a refund now owe money? I thought I was “safe,” because on my federal return I already had the maximum amount withheld (no exemptions), but it’s sounding like I needed to actually go in and have them withhold extra in order not to get screwed over?
Or is it the loss of some of the exemptions along with the removal of SALT and some mortgage interest deductibility *along with* the change in withholding that’s screwing people over? Like, they reduced the amount of withholding so that everyone would, they hoped, notice more money in their paychecks, but the other changes along with that reduction in withholding caused a lot of people to end up owing instead of getting a refund?