Wednesday, May 01, 2019

Tax cuts went to the rich

A new analysis ofTrump's 2017 tax cuts details how workers received little benefit from the plan, despite the savings many of their powerful corporate employers received. The largest corporate tax cut in U.S. history—from 35 to 21 percent—resulted in companies saving about $150 billion in the first year after the passage in December 2017.

Trump and then-House Speaker Paul Ryan had spent months telling Americans they stood to save hundreds or even thousands of dollars in taxes, with Trump telling one crowd that the average family would see a pay raise of about $4,000, a benefit that would "trickle down" from employers' corporate tax cuts. Far from the $4,000 raises Trump alluded to, the average paycheck went up about $6, or $233 per year.

The Center for Public Integrity (CPI) reporters Peter Cary and Allan Holmes wrote in The Guardian, companies instead distributed their savings amongst the few Americans who hold stock in their corporations:
"The bulk of the $150 billion the tax cut put into the hands of corporations in 2018 went into shareholder dividends and stock buy-backs, both of which line the pockets of the 10 percent of Americans who own 84 percent of the stocks. Just 6 percent of the tax savings was spent on workers, according to Just Capital, a not-for-profit that tracks the Russell 1000 index."

CPI drew three main conclusions from their extensive research into the effects of the tax cuts: that the law "was first and foremost a gift to multinationals;" that Republicans' claims that they aimed to "reform" the tax code without adding to the deficit were "meaningless;" and that it left the tax system vulnerable to abuse by corporations committed to tax avoidance.

The law "contained egregious mistakes, created massive new loopholes, and opened the door to new forms of tax avoidance," write Cary and Holmes.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/04/30/while-corporate-profits-and-tax-dodging-soared-analysis-shows-just-6-gop-tax-scam

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