Face It: You (Probably) Got a Tax Cut

nytimes ^ | 4/14/2019 | Ben Casselman and Jim Tankersley

[bitt]

Studies consistently find that the 2017 law cut taxes for most Americans. Most of them don’t buy it.

If you’re an American taxpayer, you probably got a tax cut last year. And there’s a good chance you don’t believe it.

Ever since President Trump signed the Republican-sponsored tax bill in December 2017, independent analyses have consistently found that a large majority of Americans would owe less because of the law. Preliminary data based on tax filings has shown the same.

Yet as the first tax filing season under the new law wraps up on Monday, taxpayers are skeptical. A survey conducted in early April for The New York Times by the online research platform SurveyMonkey found that just 40 percent of Americans believed they had received a tax cut under the law. Just 20 percent were certain they had done so. That’s consistent with previous polls finding that most Americans felt they hadn’t gotten a tax cut, and that a large minority thought their taxes had risen — though not even one in 10 households actually got a tax increase.

[US_MilitaryRules]

Nope! I’m self employed in commiefornia.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Got a fairly large refund this year.

Annoying!

Usually I aim for a tiny one but this year has been crammed full and evidently I fell down on the job.

It will not happen next year.

[Not A Snowbird]

Hey, HTB! How are you?

(Formerly SandyInSeattle)

[kaehurowing]

I’m in a blue high-tax state, we all got hit by the loss of the state tax deduction.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Nice to see you too.

You have freepmail.

[Not A Snowbird]

I was surprised that I got hit with that too... in Arizona. It’s not just blue states!

[terart]

don’t feel bad...I live in rural southeast area of Virginia and I home is assessed LESS than $400,000...property taxes went over the allowed amount :( so it’s happening in many many places.

[House Atreides]

I’m in a blue high-tax state, we all got hit by the loss of the state tax deduction.
*******************************************
I too live in a high-tax blue state (Maryland) and our SALT deduction was also limited to the max. With the SALT restriction, the new standard deduction was higher than our deductible itemized deductions. The funny thing is we went with the itemized deductions even though that resulted in higher FEDERAL TAXES than we could have paid had we taken the standard deduction. We had to do that in order to be able to itemize on our state taxes — our state tax SAVINGS by itemizing we’re significantly more than our federal tax “LOSSES”. MARYLAND SUCKS!

[PA Engineer]

Ditto. $4154 here.

[beef]

“Most of them don’t buy it.”

Because legacy media outlets like the NYT have been working overtime to convince people to believe just that.

It had to have been a mistake that this article got published.

[reed13k]

I calculated what I paid before and after. My federal tax was ~.03% higher. I’m sure that I could have probably had a professional find some additional stuff - in the end though it was a wash for us tax RATE wise.

$ wise I paid more and I had to cut a check - but that was because my income was 10% higher than the prior year.

Next year I lose one of my daughters as a tax credit as she runs off into the great world on her own after graduating college. THAT will hurt as my rate will increase- but will be offset by less expense (tuition etc).

[fireman15]

We got hit with a double whammy. First we pay a lot more than $10,000 in state taxes so were unable to deduct all the money we paid out in taxes. Then even though the standard deduction was nearly doubled, those who itemize lost their exemptions. So that increased our adjusted gross income by another $8,100. The only way we were able to partially equalize this was by increasing the amount of charitable giving to the absolute maximum which is half of your adjusted gross income. But we still had to send the IRS a substantial amount of money. I am going to have to increase our withholding substantially this year if we cannot find a lot more items to donate.

The new tax law hurts those who itemize but do not make a lot of money. We are in this weird tax zone; if we made more money the reduced rate would equalize out the loss of the personal exemptions. I am not sure what the purpose of this is... it definitely hurts a segment of the lower middle class who have high mortgage interest and high state taxes that come to a lot more than the $24,000 standard deduction.

We have both lived in Washington all of our lives. But we are planning on buying a cheaper house in another state that has lower taxes as soon as we can sell our property here and then taking the standard deduction. The amount we pay to the federal government will go up, but the amount we pay overall in taxes and interest will go down. We can no longer afford to stay in a familiar area with our friends and family.

[CurlyDave]

The real problem is that the IRS adjusted withholding because of the new tax law.

Many people are really, really stupid and think that a big refund means taxes went down. There is little hope for these people ever being on our side.

The lessened withholding produced more money in most people’s pockets, which contributed mightily to the economic boost.

But, it leaves us open to the Dem/Media lie that taxes increased.

Hopefully the good economy is more powerful than the media lie about increased taxes.

(BTW, I am retired, but paid more. This is because of the stock market increase which allowed us to withdraw more. So, even though I paid a little more, I am better off.)

[joma89]

I did but I am intelligent enough to compare my apple income of last year to my orange income of this year and understand where the reductions came from. In short, just because I received a smaller refund does not mean I somehow paid more tax overall.

Of course the useful idiots of the world believe the tripe the leftist media writes when it describes lower tax refunds as proof that there was no tax cut.

JoMa

[DainBramage]

I got a big one. My wife and I were almost shocked.

[SkyPilot]

Nope, my taxes went way up.

[SkyPilot]

We got hit with a double whammy. First we pay a lot more than $10,000 in state taxes so were unable to deduct all the money we paid out in taxes. Then even though the standard deduction was nearly doubled, those who itemize lost their exemptions....The new tax law hurts those who itemize but do not make a lot of money. We are in this weird tax zone; if we made more money the reduced rate would equalize out the loss of the personal exemptions. I am not sure what the purpose of this is... it definitely hurts a segment of the lower middle class who have high mortgage interest and high state taxes that come to a lot more than the $24,000 standard deduction.

Don't tell that truth on some threads - people will accuse you of all kind of nefarious things.

[SkyPilot]

The real problem is that the IRS adjusted withholding because of the new tax law.

That was one problem, but far from the only one with the tax law.

To all the people who mock others as "stupid", and claiming they didn't know that each paycheck they were paying a bit less, but didn't get a refund or they owed money - I would submit that for the great majority of Americans do realize the difference. The simple truth is that many people do see a windfall check vs. a huge IRS bill as just that, and don't really care about "floating uncle Sam an interest free loan." They just don't want to get clobbered at tax time, and if they get money back, they will buy that stove they need, or put it towards car repairs they had to put off, or pay it to college tuition, and so on.

But the real problem with the tax bill was that is greatly rewarded corporations (a cut from 35% to 21%), and "paid for it" at the expense of individuals and families who say their long standing deductions and exemptions become capped or made illegal. That was done with a specific purpose and design - the IRS NEEDED their money to make up for the corporate tax cut, so they shafted other Americans.

People here can dispute that all they want, even Gary Cohen and Stephen Mnuchin admitted that is what they did.

[usconservative]

The refund did go down quite a bit.

Your refund went down because the withholding tables also changed, increasing the amount of your take-home pay in every paycheck.

Most people DO NOT know this.

[DoodleDawg]

I know I didn’t. Federal went up some but my state taxes went up as well due to the loss of federal deductions increasing my taxable income. But I knew that would happen. There are winners and losers in every legislation that is passed.