@fasttimes said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

On a personal note, I find this plan to be disgraceful. I don’t need a tax cut. The wealthy certainly don’t need a tax cut. It boggles the mind that people who make 50k a year still support Trump. I heard on the radio the average “savings” for people under 75k a year is $18 a week. Don’t spend it all in one place.

I’m glad you’re flush enough to not need a tax break. I’ll say it, I need a tax break. I’m tapped out. And instead I get a $250 tax increase. I’ll gladly take $18 over a $250 increase.

@principalmember said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

@cpaynter said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

@redmed said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

@cpaynter said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

@principalmember said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

There has been a lot of crying about the property tax/state income taxes being limited to 10K (effectively can’t even do it since you need a big mortgage to overcome the 24K std deduction). But personally, for the high earners, not being able to deduct state income tax may be wash since the new rates are lower at the higher end.

Sure, for the high earners it’s great. But for those of us <$160k AGI, we’re seeing our taxes increased. I thought this was supposed to be a tax break for the middle class? What’s middle class now, a minimum of $200k?

Waa Waa Waa The rich get more benefit from the tax break! The rich pay more taxes, so of course they are going to benefit more from any tax break. Instead have every citizen pay the same amount regardless of income. That would the most fair.

Absolutely, I agree. Despite what demagogues would have you believe, the rich really do pay the majority of income taxes. So it stands to reason that with any tax cut, the rich will benefit more because they are paying more. And I’m perfectly comfortable with that.

So if a bill were to give a tax break to the higher earners and leave the rest of us out, I’d be fine with that. But when the higher earners are getting a tax break, and many of us in the lower ranges are getting a tax increase, I’m sorry, that sucks.

What really sticks in my craw is that this is being billed as a “tax cut” and a “tax simplification” when for me in the middle it is anything but.

And it also irks me that the bill in its earlier incarnation truly did provide tax cuts across the board and true simplification, significantly reducing the number of brackets even as it did away with the state income tax deduction. Then at the last moment, they screwed it up, returning to a dizzying number of brackets and putting in place the idiotic $10k SALT limitation, which is a mess.

I’d be thrilled with a tax system that was more flat, as you suggested. If not a flat $ amount, then at least a flat rate. But IMHO, this bill brings us further away from flatness.

What we ended up with was:
Tax cut = FAIL
Tax simplification = FAIL

Chris.

As far as I concerned, it is not a fail on “simplification”. Whether they have 10 brackets or 50 brackets, computers can calculate that in less than a second. But they have eliminated the AMT for most people and that is nice - you don’t have to compute taxes using a parallel universe. Also by raising standard deduction and limiting deductions, they will force a lot more people into standard deduction. At least I won’t be fumbling and looking for my property tax statements, charitable contribution receipts and so on.

Agreed that the effects are highly personalized. I should have clarified that the “we” in “What we ended up with” was me and my wife, and the many others in our position. For those for whom the AMT was a constant threat, they can certainly breathe a sigh of relief. That was never me. For those couples who didn’t itemize, or itemized for less than $24k, this is great. For me, I still have to fumble and look for my property tax statements, charitable contribution receipts and so on. Only now, I get even less payback for my fumbling. Partly because my SALT deductions are restricted, but also because the gap between the standard deduction and my itemized deductions is smaller. Still large enough to make a difference, but less buck for the bang. Now for all that extra fumbling, I’m getting an additional $16k of deduction, instead of $32k. So I get half the benefit for the same amount of work.

I appreciate your earlier suggestion of alternating charitable contributions between years to maximize the standard deduction. Not a bad plan, but much of my contribution consists of obligations I’ve made to periodic (weekly or monthly) contributions. For those cases, I really don’t want to go back to the model of making occasional large contributions. But the fact that I have to consider those kind of plays means, to me, that our system is too complicated.

Chris.

@meed18 said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

According to Market Watch’s calculator, my federal tax total will go down $912. However, if I didn’t have a child eligible for the $2k child tax credit, my tax would go up $188.

MFJ with AGI ~$110k and $21k in itemized deductions.

Yes, you’re right. This bill is great for the breeders.

Chris.

@redmed said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

@cpaynter said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

@principalmember said in How will the new tax bill affect your taxes?:

There has been a lot of crying about the property tax/state income taxes being limited to 10K (effectively can’t even do it since you need a big mortgage to overcome the 24K std deduction). But personally, for the high earners, not being able to deduct state income tax may be wash since the new rates are lower at the higher end.

Sure, for the high earners it’s great. But for those of us <$160k AGI, we’re seeing our taxes increased. I thought this was supposed to be a tax break for the middle class? What’s middle class now, a minimum of $200k?

Waa Waa Waa The rich get more benefit from the tax break! The rich pay more taxes, so of course they are going to benefit more from any tax break. Instead have every citizen pay the same amount regardless of income. That would the most fair.

Absolutely, I agree. Despite what demagogues would have you believe, the rich really do pay the majority of income taxes. So it stands to reason that with any tax cut, the rich will benefit more because they are paying more. And I’m perfectly comfortable with that.

So if a bill were to give a tax break to the higher earners and leave the rest of us out, I’d be fine with that. But when the higher earners are getting a tax break, and many of us in the lower ranges are getting a tax increase, I’m sorry, that sucks.

What really sticks in my craw is that this is being billed as a “tax cut” and a “tax simplification” when for me in the middle it is anything but.

And it also irks me that the bill in its earlier incarnation truly did provide tax cuts across the board and true simplification, significantly reducing the number of brackets even as it did away with the state income tax deduction. Then at the last moment, they screwed it up, returning to a dizzying number of brackets and putting in place the idiotic $10k SALT limitation, which is a mess.

I’d be thrilled with a tax system that was more flat, as you suggested. If not a flat $ amount, then at least a flat rate. But IMHO, this bill brings us further away from flatness.

What we ended up with was:
Tax cut = FAIL
Tax simplification = FAIL

Chris.