http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-tax-plan-details-corporate-rate-individual-brackets-deductions-cuts-2017-9

The article is an easy read, but I'll break it down more simplified below for you all. What do you all think? My personal commentary is at the bottom.

Business Tax Changes:
- Corporate tax rate goes from 35% to 20%
- Business owners pay 25% for profits instead of individual tax rate (which often is in the 30-40% range)
- Eliminates many business deductions/loopholes
- 1 time repatriation tax - Likely a ~10% tax for companies to bring their cash from overseas back to the US. It's the "something is better than nothing" tax on big American companies.

Personal Tax Changes:
- 12% tax rate for those who were paying 10% or 15% before
- 25% tax rate (unspecified, but it should be people currently paying between 25% and 28%, possibly some 33%'ers will qualify. That'd be single filers from $38k-191k, possibly lumping in some 200-300k earners)
- 35% tax rate for those who were paying 39.6% before.
- Possible, not set in stone, but they're saying they may set a higher tax rate for the uber-rich, which I think makes sense. Currently the 39.6% top rate is for $415k+ earners. I assume they might make a 40% tax rate for those making $1m+ or $2m+ and put those sub $1m at 35%. I think you might see them set it around 42% for the $5m+ range to offset the drop of the 28% and 33% tax rate people to 25%. That kinda makes sense to me, I'm good with that.
- Standard deduction raised to compensate the previous 10% tax rate people now being put in the 12% bracket. Previously $6350 and $12700 for single/joint respectively, now will be $12k/24k respectively.
- Most itemized deductions are nixed with the exception of charitable donations and mortgage interest (thank fucking god. no reason to fuck over homeowners)
- Increase child tax credit - This one I don't really understand or support. Makes the first $1000 refundable and increase the income level at which the credit would phase out.
- Eliminate state and local tax deduction (SALT tax deduction). This means you can no longer write off your state/local taxes dollars from your federal return. This is a win for democrats since most who take this deduction are rich people in NY/CA/NJ.
- Eliminate estate tax below $5.5m - Meaning, unless your net worth is $5.5m+, it doesn't affect you. However, if you're worth say, $7m, you'd be taxed on $1.5m of your $7m, hence the $5.5m+ rule.

Overall, this is a big win for republicans and a loss for Keynesians because it supports supply side economics by reducing tax on corporations. However, for you personally, it's better in pretty much every way regardless of your situation from a personal standpoint because if you're super poor, you pay 2% more, but get back more in standard deduction so you win. If you're middle income you're at worst a 25% tax that stays at a 25% tax, but if you're at 28% or 33%, you will likely now pay 25%. If you're rich, you'll go from 39.6% to 35% and you win. If you're mega rich, you might win big or you might lose. If you make say $10m/year, you might save 4.6%/year, but if Trump actually can implement a 40%+ tax on the "super-rich" (which he should), you might get a little fucked if you're in that category. It's a win for small business owners as well because it sucks to have to pay 39.6% on your business profits as if you're an individual instead of paying the corporate tax rate. Reducing to 25% will be a big help in encouraging people to start their own businesses I think.

If anyone wants more details or previous tax code info, how it will affect you, etc. You're welcome to PM me. This area is my forte and I think I've proven myself to be pretty independent thinking here when it comes to finance/taxes aside from thinking there are too many welfare leeches.

Happy to help

Hmm here is the tl;dr version brought to you by buzzfeed 2.0 and wapo:

key takeaways from Drumpfs tax plan:

*racist
*divisive
*xenophobic
*people will die
*too similar to russia's tax policy

Thanks for the breakdown.

It's a zero sum game so if it's a win for every citizen, it must be a loss for the national debt?

top tax rates are largely meaningless , they might as well be 0% if nothing is done about legal maneuvering offshoring profits to begin with



it's a loss for about 90% of the populace once republicans start cutting away at programs that help said 90% to offset the tax cuts at the top

This post was edited by duffman316 on Sep 28 2017 10:49am

Don't think much would really change but a rather bad characterization of Keynesian economics to think it simply means to raise taxes. Keynesian economics is rooted in raising or lowering them based on the state of the market.

Although Keynes views and Keynesian economics definitely have been warped by some people to not really represent what Keynes believed.

Well that much is obvious. But I meant right now, before those decisions are made. The deficit must be staggering?

Overdue.

I think this is an area that both parties are going to come together and get something done. It'll boost GDP and our economy greatly imo.

My micro econ professor who is openly against Trump agrees that our current tax code is an absolute shit show that needs to be reformed. Too much complexity & ambiguity is not a good thing.

If they actually nix a lot of deductions but leave in child tax credit, it's pretty dumb. I like the rate structure though.

This post was edited by timmayX on Sep 28 2017 11:14am

ofc both parties will get this done - because it means massive tax cuts for their donors and them, that is the whole point...

ofc it will significantly increase the deficit, but it's not like republicans ever actually cared about that - and ofc the middle class and poor households will be worse off, but that is pretty much expected from trump. i wonder where all the simple minded 'socialism doesn't work' idiots stand on the whole trickle down approach, which has a much worse track record...

but i see where the spin is going: focus on the (actually desireable and necessary) simplification of the tax code, and ignore the deficit and massive taxcuts for the rich... wonder what your "micro econ professor" has to say about the latter...

This is the real issue.

They're going to rip the debt a new asshole and completely ignore it until a Democrat wins again, then start talking about how we need to cut cut cut to be responsible.