As the U.S. tax filing season progresses, new data shows that more Americans are being hurt than being helped by the tax scam legislation passed by Donald Trump and congressional Republicans in December of 2017.
According to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Friday just one of every five U.S. taxpayers will pay less income tax this year than last year. When the tax law was passed Donald Trump and members of the GOP had promised that most Americans would see big savings when they filed their 2018 tax returns.
But this has not happened, and most Americans who filed early have been upset that their expected tax refunds have gone way down from the prior year. Early returns show that the Republican tax scam bill has really hurt working Americans, and hit them hard.
In fact, according to a report published earlier this month, American taxpayers have lost $323 billion in tax deductions due to the Trump/GOP tax scam.
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The survey found that 21 percent of taxpayers said the new law would let them pay less this year but 29 percent said they would pay more, 27 percent said there would be no difference, and 24 percent said they didn’t know what the impact would be.
Clearly the tax scam has backfired on the Republican Party. It has exploded the deficit and also helped give the Democrats control of the House after last November’s Blue Wave election.
Today’s new poll clearly shows that the new tax law will not be the strong 2020 campaign talking point that Republicans and Donald Trump had expected when they passed the misguided legislation.
Just prior to approval of the tax law by the Republican-controlled Congress, Trump announced:
“This is going to be one of the great gifts to the middle-income people of this country that they’ve ever gotten for Christmas.â€
Of course, that was a typical Trump lie.
Although the new tax law did lower income tax rates for some individuals it also reduced and eliminated many deductions, such as for state and local taxes. For many millions of middle class Americans, this means that they will wind up paying more in taxes.
And they won’t know that until they complete their 2018 tax returns.
For Donald Trump and the Republican Party, who passed the greatest tax scam legislation in U.S. history, the chickens are finally coming home to roost.
I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.
