Tax cuts will cross all income lines, but disappear by 2027
Enjoy those tax cuts while you have them: The Republican tax bill would deliver average initial tax cuts for Americans across all income lines, but by 2027, that wouldn't be the case.
Within a decade, the tax bill would boost average levies for everyone earning up to $75,000, which includes most taxpayers, Congress' nonpartisan tax analyst estimated Monday.
The projection seemed unlikely to have any impact on the fate of the legislation, which was expected to win House approval Tuesday. Senate passage was likely by Wednesday as the GOP races to send President Donald Trump his first major legislative victory before Christmas.
The $1.5 trillion tax package would lower many tax brackets and limit or reduce popular deductions, changes that are likely to impact almost every American. While middle-class taxpayers are expected to see small tax breaks, the big winners would be wealthy Americans, including President Donald Trump, who will enjoy a windfall for his real estate empire.
If the bill is signed before the end of the year, taxpayers would likely feel the impact in a few weeks, most likely by February. The tax bill also lowers the corporate tax rate, a change that will remain in place even as individual tax cuts expire.
"Most of the individual changes in the bill are set to expire after 2025, while the corporate provisions are generally permanent," wrote Nancy Vanden Houten, senior economist at Oxford Economics, in a research note. "Many individuals will receive tax cuts, but others will face tax increases, particularly after individual tax cuts expire."
The Joint Committee on Taxation calculated that in 2019, people earning $20,000 to $50,000 would see tax cuts averaging 10 percent or more. Those making $200,000 to $1 million would see reductions averaging slightly less.
But by 2023, people making under $30,000 would see tax increases while those earning more would see their tax cuts get smaller.
That pattern would continue. In 2027, a year after most individual tax provisions expire, people making up to $75,000 would be paying more on average than under current law. The committee says around 118 million of the 177 million tax returns are from households making up to $75,000.
Republicans ended the individual tax cuts in 2026 to conform to Senate rules that require the measure to limit the federal debt increases it would cause. The bill is projected to boost federal shortfalls by nearly $1.5 trillion over the coming decade.
GOP lawmakers say they'd expect a future Congress to continue the tax cuts so they won't expire. If achieved, that would drive up deficits even further.
A separate study by the Tax Policy Center, a private nonpartisan group, found that individual taxes would be reduced on average next year by $1,600.
But that ranged on average from $60 for people earning below $25,000 to $7,640 for those making above $149,000. Those in the top 1 percent, earning over $733,000, would see average tax cuts of $51,140.
In 2027, 53 percent of families would face tax increases averaging $180. Those tax boosts on average would grow with income, the policy center said.
One in four taxpayers that year would have tax reductions averaging $1,540, with larger cuts for higher-earning people.
Most of the bill's benefits go to businesses and the wealthy, which Republicans say would goose the economy and benefit all. Democrats reject that assertion and are expected to oppose the bill unanimously.
On Monday, moderate Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she'd support the bill, meaning all voting Republicans are expected to back it, enough for passage. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is at home battling brain cancer and is expected to miss the vote. The GOP controls the Senate 52-48.