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house ways and means committee
GOP Confirms 2025 Tax Plan If Trump Wins: More Giveaways to the Rich
"There are 20 years of data showing trickle-down economics doesn't work, yet today will still be a whole lot of revisionist history and wishful thinking on the singular largest failure of fiscal policy in recent memory," said Rep. Richard Neal.
Apr 12, 2024
As House Republicans prepare for Donald Trump's possible White House return by plotting to expand the billionaire and corporate tax cuts that were the cornerstone of the former president's first administration, congressional Democrats and advocates for working Americans warned Thursday that a second Trump term would bring more of the same inequality-exacerbating policies.
The GOP-controlled House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing Thursday on "expanding the success" of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA)—widely derided by opponents as the "GOP Tax Scam." Republican committee members couched a policy that the Center for Popular Democracy said "delivered big benefits to the rich and corporations but nearly none for working families" as "relief to help hardworking American families."
Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), the committee's ranking member, pushed back during Thursday's hearing, noting that "in the last three decades, Republicans have skyrocketed the deficit with trillions in tax cuts for billionaires and big corporations, always with the same result: the top 1% benefits while nothing trickles down for workers."
Neal continued:
In 2017, Ways and Means Democrats saw the GOP corporate tax giveaway for what it was: a scam. We knew that their Tax Scam would disproportionately benefit the wealthy and well-connected. We knew that it wouldn't pay for itself. We knew that big corporations, not their workers, would feel the most benefit. Six years since the GOP Tax Scam was signed into law, we've been proven right on every count. It didn't pay for itself, it didn't increase revenue, and it didn't increase wages.
A recent study whose authors included [Joint Committee on Taxation] economists—let that sink in—found that ALL of the corporate gains from TCJA went to shareholders and high-paid executives, with absolutely nothing flowing to workers. Fifty-six percent of the tax cuts enriched shareholders, and the remaining 44% lined the pockets of execs. Zero percent went to workers. ZERO!
"There are 20 years of data showing trickle-down economics doesn't work, yet today will still be a whole lot of revisionist history and wishful thinking on the singular largest failure of fiscal policy in recent memory," Neal added. "If workers and the middle class are actually your priorities, putting them ahead of big corporations and billionaires is the only way."
Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.)—who also sits on the committee—agreed, asserting on social media that "the Trump tax cuts were a huge 'success' if you were a billionaire or an executive at a large corporation. They made out like bandits, with a huge amount of the benefits from the GOP tax law going to the wealthiest. Now Republicans want to give the superrich even more tax cuts."
Trump is open about this. At an exclusive fundraiser at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last week, he shouted out his "rich as hell" supporters, telling them, "We're gonna give you tax cuts, we're gonna pay off our debt."
That's the same debt that soared by around $8 trillion during Trump's term—largely as a result of his tax cuts. Meanwhile, U.S. billionaires have collectively gotten $2.2 trillion richer since the GOP tax cuts took effect.
With many provisions of the TCJA set to expire at the end of 2025, progressives are underscoring what's at stake in this November's elections.
"Today the American people got a preview of what's in store for them next year if the Trump Tax Scam expires under conservative leadership," Groundwork Collaborative executive director Lindsay Owens said following the House hearing. "The conservative playbook for the 2025 tax fight is coming into focus, and we can be sure it includes more giveaways for the wealthy and corporations."
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House Hearing Puts 'GOP Tax Scam 2.0' in Spotlight
Following "recent Republican chaos, we're now back to their regularly scheduled programming: Cutting taxes for millionaires," said Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell. "They did it in 2017 and now Republicans are again pushing tax cuts for the rich."
Jun 13, 2023
House Republicans are poised to advance regressive taxation measures that would increase the federal deficit just weeks after they nearly blew up the global economy over ostensible concerns about the U.S. government's debt, eliciting condemnation from Democratic lawmakers and progressive advocates.
The Republican-led House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing Tuesday to mark up the so-called American Families and Jobs Act (AFJA), which packages three bills: the Tax Cuts for Working Families Act, the Small Business Jobs Act, and the Build It in America Act.
This trio of bills—dubbed the "GOP Tax Scam 2.0" by the panel's ranking member, Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.)—would expand Trump-era tax cuts whose benefits flow overwhelmingly to corporations and the wealthy. In the wake of demanding—and winning—sharp reductions in anti-poverty spending along with other reactionary reforms during negotiations to raise the debt ceiling, the GOP-controlled House is now moving to starve the federal government of essential revenue.
"It didn't take long for the MAGA majority's alleged debt 'concerns' to go right out the window in pursuit of more wasteful tax breaks for their billionaire donors and corporations."
"It didn't take long for the MAGA majority's alleged debt 'concerns' to go right out the window in pursuit of more wasteful tax breaks for their billionaire donors and corporations that ship jobs overseas," Liz Zelnick, director of Economic Security & Corporate Power at Accountable.US, said in a statement.
"If the recent past is prologue, the MAGA majority will try to pay for their trillion-dollar corporate tax giveaway on the backs of average Americans, including devastating cuts aimed at seniors, veterans, and the food insecure," said Zelnick. "Once again, the MAGA House majority has only corporations and the wealthy in mind."
Zelnick's sentiment was echoed by Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee.
"This is the most ill-considered piece of legislation that I've witnessed in years in front of this committee," said Neal. "Just 10 days after our Republican colleagues were prepared to bring the nation to the brink of default... to the precipice, if not over the edge, they now come back with a tax cut."
"Apparently, the debt only matters if it's about spending, never about tax cuts," said Neal, who lamented "$10 trillion of tax cuts" enacted in 2001, 2003, and 2017—years when Republicans held both chambers of Congress and the White House.
\u201cRepublican tax cuts are a masterclass in failed promises, lip service to small businesses and working families, only for them to end up with pennies. \n\nWATCH Ranking Member @RepRichardNeal's opening statement at the markup of the #GOPTaxScam 2.0 \u2935\ufe0f\u201d— Ways and Means Democrats (@Ways and Means Democrats) 1686668744
Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) derided what he called the GOP's "tax scam 2.0" as one of the worst sequels in history.
"After months of some of you actually liking the idea of keeping other people hostage, some of you are back to the single issue that unites your party: Tax cuts for the well-off," Pascrell said in a message to Republicans on the panel. "It's far past time to retire" the argument that "tax cuts 'pay for themselves.' They just don't. You can't prove it."
\u201cAmid recent republican chaos we\u2019re now back to their regularly scheduled programming: cutting taxes for millionaires. They did it in 2017 and now republicans are again pushing tax cuts for the rich. The gop tax scam 2.0 is a worse sequel than Caddyshack 2!\u201d— Bill Pascrell, Jr. \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6 (@Bill Pascrell, Jr. \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6) 1686674915
Among other things, the AFJA would expand corporate and business tax breaks enacted in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) approved by congressional Republicans and signed into law by then-President Donald Trump in 2017.
If the new proposal were to pass, the richest 1% of U.S. households would receive $28.4 billion in tax cuts (an average of $16,560) next year, compared with $1.4 billion for the poorest 20% ($40, on average), according to Steve Wamhoff, federal policy director at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Because foreign investors own a substantial share of stock in U.S. corporations, they would also receive $23.8 billion next year under the legislation.
House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) has claimed that the cost of the tax cuts would be offset through a repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act's clean energy tax credits. But as Wamhoff explained in an analysis published earlier this week, deliberately hindering the nation's renewable energy transition would impose additional costs "in the form of greater climate damage."
\u201cThis is the classic tradeoff for Republicans\u2014slash programs for working people to fund MORE tax breaks for big corporations and their rich owners.\n\nShameful.\u201d— Americans For Tax Fairness (@Americans For Tax Fairness) 1686663793
Moreover, "the true costs are hidden by budget gimmicks," Wamhoff noted. "The most important budget gimmick is that the legislation enacts the biggest tax cuts for only two years even though its proponents plan to extend them in the future, making them, in effect, permanent."
According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget: "The bill would cost $80 billion over a decade with interest ($19 billion before interest), including $320 billion through the end of fiscal year (FY) 2025. The smaller 10-year cost is driven by several factors but mainly by the fact that most of the bill's tax cuts expire at the end of 2025. We estimate that the plan would cost over $1.1 trillion ($950 billion without interest) through 2033 if these temporary tax cuts and extensions were made permanent."
The benefits of the 2017 TCJA "never trickled down," Americans for Tax Fairness tweeted. "Instead, the rich got richer and corporations made bigger profits. We should be repealing the Trump tax cuts, not making them permanent."
In a blog post published Tuesday, Chuck Marr and Samantha Jacoby of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities also urged lawmakers to "reject this bill and pursue tax policy that works better for the country as a whole—not just wealthy investors and high-income households."
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House Panel Releases Six Years of Donald Trump's Tax Returns
"Trump used questionable or poorly substantiated deductions and a number of other tax avoidance schemes as justification to pay little or no federal income tax," said one House Democrat.
Dec 30, 2022
After a protracted legal fight and relentless obstruction by the former president, the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday finally released six years of Donald Trump's individual and business tax returns.
"It is a bittersweet moment," Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), a member of the House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee, wrote on Twitter, lamenting how long it took for lawmakers to obtain the documents and make them public. "I will read through them today and you should too. Every American deserves this sunlight. This is what democracy is about."
A download link for the returns, which span 2015 to 2020 and are redacted to conceal sensitive personal information such as Social Security numbers, is here (warning: the file is very large—1.1 GB—and in ZIP format).
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) also published the documents as more easily downloadable PDFs on its website.
The long-awaited release of the documents came after the House Ways and Means Committee voted last week to make them public. The committee also published a summary confirming that Trump—who broke with longstanding tradition by refusing to release the documents voluntarily—paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017 and $0 in 2020.
The summary made clear that Trump turned to avoidance tactics that the ultra-rich often use to slash their tax bills. In the years covered by the newly published documents, the former president reported massive net operating losses, allowing him to dramatically reduce or completely zero out his tax liabilities.
The House committee, which Democrats control until next week, also revealed earlier this month that the IRS didn't begin auditing Trump's taxes until 2019, despite the agency's mandatory presidential audit policy.
"Trump acted as though he had something to hide, a pattern consistent with the recent conviction of his family business for criminal tax fraud," Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), a member of the House tax panel, said in a statement Friday. "As the public will now be able to see, Trump used questionable or poorly substantiated deductions and a number of other tax avoidance schemes as justification to pay little or no federal income tax in several of the years examined."
"These findings underscore the fact that our tax laws are often inequitable, and that enforcement of them is often unjust," Beyer continued. "Trump was able to bypass even the mandatory IRS presidential audit program for years, but many other wealthy and powerful people evade billions in tax dues every year through more quotidian tax avoidance. Congress has so much work to do to make tax enforcement in this country fairer."
In response to the release of his returns, Trump—a 2024 presidential candidate—proudly touted his expansive use of deductions to lower his tax bills.
"The 'Trump' tax returns once again show how proudly successful I have been and how I have been able to use depreciation and various other tax deductions as an incentive for creating thousands of jobs and magnificent structures and enterprises," the former president said.
"The radical, left Democrats have weaponized everything," he fumed, "but remember, that is a dangerous two-way street!"
The former president's returns show that he personally benefited from some of the provisions of the tax-cut measure he signed into law in 2017. As Bloomberg noted, Trump took advantage of the law's "expanded write-offs for business expenses" and "the scaling back of the alternative minimum tax, or AMT, allowing him to claim more individual deductions."
"Trump acted as though he had something to hide, a pattern consistent with the recent conviction of his family business for criminal tax fraud."
Writing for The Atlantic on Friday, CREW president Noah Bookbinder urged the Senate Finance Committee to investigate the IRS' failure to audit Trump in the early years of his presidency.
"The public needs to know whether one more key government function was politicized, allowing a president to shield possible conflicts of interest and escape accountability," Bookbinder wrote. "The American people need reassurances that transparency, oversight, and accountability will once again become matters of course rather than subjects of prolonged litigation."
"Donald Trump attempted to hijack the United States government to keep himself in power, and American democracy almost didn't survive," he added. "His tax returns may have been another part of that effort. That merits investigation—not over another six years, but now."
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