| The 9 page Republican tax plan draft is pretty awful. Not just awful in the sense that Trump promised that it didn't benefit rich people, which it does ("It's not good for me, believe me"). The elimination of the estate tax on the top 0.2% of estates in America is the most egregious example. The immediate write off of depreciable assets, elimination of AMT and reduction of corporate taxes largely do not apply to small businesses. In particular, the immediate expensing of depreciable assets may further serve to exacerbate irrational purchases of equipment by small businesses, potentially locking them into unprofitable business practices, while benefitting large corporations that make these specialized products (see the corn glut). No comment on whether this is moral or not, in the end it brings profits to big business at the direct expense of small business. But its also awful in the sense that its not even close to complete or reasonable. Half of the 9 page document is just empty words and opinions that have no business being on a document meant to form the basis of our new tax code. Republican analysts have yet to make up for the optimistic 1.5 trillion dollar projected shortfall introduced by this tax reform, and the various "tricks" being discussed to bridge that gap are unpalatable at best. Clever accounting reminiscent of the practices that brought Enron to its downfall, punting the problem of shortfalls 10 years down when the debt becomes to big to ignore. Taxing of retirement plan contributions and proceeds which will be borne by middle class workers. If this is all the Republicans have to show after 2 years of bluster, I can't see any significant reform going through. Moreover, the duplicitous wording of the document gives less reason to view the Republicans in a charitable light. The whole section on the "zero tax bracket" and dependent deduction elimination represents little to the lower class Americans it purports to help. Replacing the deduction for non child dependents with a 500 dollar tax credit is a tax increase in most cases. The unspecified increase in the child tax credit is also balanced by the loss in the $4000 deduction - there is no reason to expect an actual effective tax break of significant magnitude when the Republicans can't even give us a flat answer. The elimination of most itemized deductions perturbs me as well - give people even less of a reason to spend their money in incentivized manners, punish the middle class further? We'll see what exactly they eliminate, if its comparable to the nearly doubled standard deduction. "Finally, the committees will work on additional measures to meaningfully reduce the tax burden on the middle-class." It's amazing how long it took them to produce a mere 9 page document, much of which contains words that impart no meaning. I've written essays in high school longer than this. |