Your plan reminds me of this:



How many Trump supporters take the mystery box over 5% tax cut?

After all, it could even be a tax cut.

The problem here is people like my Dad, who's middle class and typically voted conservative throughout his life but hates Trump. Never the less, he represents a voter a little right of center. The most steadfast political take he's had over the years has always been this:

"Sure, the Republicans give tax cuts to the rich, but at least SOMEONE gets SOMETHING."

Which always leaves me trying to explain that if the deficit goes up to give tax cuts to the rich, the value of the dollar goes down and people who didn't get a tax cut actually did worse.

That's a tough argument to make... But trying to explain that they're worse off after getting a $165 tax cut is going to be damn near impossible. You'll hear a lot of, "At least I got something! Better than the Democrats!!!"

So back of the envelope, is this going to be good or bad for me? Married, 1kid 180k household income?

If you live in a high cost of living high tax state you're about to get bent over. If not it won't matter

Too early to tell.

Specifically:

Where the 12/25 tax bracket falls.
If the child tax deduction increases and the phaseout changes (currently you are phased out).
What were your itemized deductions last year?

As an aside, here's the current law 2017 Tax Brackets/Rates

Assuming he owns his property, and would stack mortgage deduction and property taxes on top of state/city taxes to far exceed the new standard deduction of $24k. If renting anyway in a high tax city then still fine, I think.

While the cutoffs are of course up in the air....

I can just kinda "feel" that if you were going to divide it up as 12/25/35/X, you could do the following:

Merge the 10-15% brackets into a 12%.
Merge the 25-28% brackets into a 25%
Merge the 33-35 (and the 39.6%)% brackets into a 35%

The real ****ing key to this whole thing for the middle class is where the 15-25% brackets fall. Going from the 15%-25% bracket is the largest percentage increase (66% relative, 10% absolute) in the whole tax bracket.

How NPR reports the estate tax portion:

The republican plan has a line to repeal the death tax. That's something that democrats call the estate tax.

Mother****er, they call it that because that’s what the **** it’s called.

****ing "librul" NPR using the Fox News line.

They do that all the time. It is infuriating.

Yo awval,

Your TOO EARLY TO TELL routine is cute, but know this: you are the target. The people who are in the low 6 figure income range are the prey. You have enough money to justify taking some from them to make the deficit estimations work out, and you don't donate enough to deserve a tax break like the mega rich. You aren't numerous enough to be a political liability, and you are rich enough to not be a sympathy case in a political ad. You are exactly the person they can come for to fund, at least partially, this massive tax cut.

Read that Republicans are basically trying to find a way to screw Californians (by removing state and local deduction) to pay red states. Hmmmm - where's the double taxation crowd now?

imagine paying several thousand dollars more a year to be able to say, "Merry Christmas" again. seems like a hefty pricetag, but what do i know

What do you mean? So now you are opposed to double taxation generally speaking or just because you will have to pay more? Seems like the leftists pretty much believe complaints about double taxation is just whining and is silly. FTR the tax code is ****ed up, no matter what they pass (if anything) it will change, and yes eliminate as much double taxation instead of increasing what is doubly taxed.

Wookie,

I don't agree that awval is the target. He will pull the lever for whatever POS the GOP throws on the ticket, but he doesn't have enough income to matter re: taxes. Like I'm sure he thinks he pays his marginal rate on his entire income and generally doesn't understand anything. But the GOP isn't going after his income - he doesn't have enough.

The real target, now that they are basically out of other groups to target and have it matter, is their own bread and butter voters, upper middle class white people. Doctors, lawyers, bankers, really any salaried white collar profession. People in the $300k - $700k range. They have a ton of income, but they aren't the donor class. And they are racist as **** and generally incredibly stupid despite their income; the GOP knows they aren't going anywhere. The ballgame, as always, is the mega rich. Hence the pass through rate of 25%. This includes basically any privately held company.

Doesn't removing the federal deduction for state and local taxes paid increase double taxation?

Pretty sure awval is a salaried white collar professional. He's claimed to at least be not that far below your sewetspot.

Like Mnuchin kind of gave away the game when he promised law firms and accounting firms wouldn't get the 25% pass through rate. Those people actually, you know, work for their income, so the GOP fundamentally doesn't care about them. It is sort of hard to imagine, I mean not really if you've been paying attention, but this is seriously about .01% or less - people who own almost unbelievably profitable privately held businesses.

Yeah, the pass through is a joke. Why even bother lowering the top marginal rate. Pass through alone is mission accomplished.

I mean, Koch Industries is a pass through business. GTFO with this bull****.

Jesus Christ Riverman I know how marginal taxes and the tax brackets work. Besides my career, and travel hacking, the next thing I know the most about is personal finance.

Wookie, we make no where near $300k but it's cheap where we live and soon will be financially secure when our student loans are gone and my wife will be able to stay at home if she chooses if/when we get pregnant.

Doctors, lawyers, bankers, really any salaried white collar profession. People in the $300k - $700k range. They have a ton of income, but they aren't the donor class. And they are racist as **** and generally incredibly stupid

Deeply and sincerely, as a doc in the 400k range, **** you. Jesus. Thanks for calling me racist and stupid.

MM MD

I think your underestimating how pissed off and quick to jump ship doctors (only of those professionals I can speak to) would be if GOP raised taxes on them. Granted it wouldn't matter and nobody would care because it's a tiny fraction of population but no way they are sticking with GOP if they did the opposite of the one thing they care about from a political standpoint. Maybe some sort of massive malpractice reform is the only thing I could see able to possibly balance raised taxes.

Surgeon?

Nope.

It's such a stupid statement on a number of levels anyway. A cursory google search would show that it's about a 50/50 split GOP/Dem for doctors (strongly influenced by specialty), that a majority of doctors are in favor of single payer, and that a strong majority favored Obamacare.

The racist stuff I can't be bothered replying to.

MM MD