Letter: Skewed statistics on impact of tax cuts

A recent letter from an "enrolled agent" claims the benefits of the Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017 benefited mainly lower income filers rather than the top 1%. The writer informs us that data clearly backs up his claims and cleverly uses percentages rather than dollars and doesn't even mention the corporate tax side of the law.

His numbers actually come from an analysis by the conservative Heartland Institute rather than the claim of "data published by the IRS." Research will yield many such analyses from across the political spectrum, but the writer's ultimate claim that the TCJA clearly made the tax code more progressive just doesn't hold water.

Looking at the law's actual dollar savings and the effect on after-tax income shows the largest amount of relief goes to high income earners. Additionally, changes to capital gains and estate taxes almost exclusively benefit high-income taxpayers. If we add the corporate side of things, it gets even worse with huge decreases in corporate tax collections.

The effect on deficits was immediate and growing before the pandemic spending binge. I understand that the wealthy pay the most taxes compared to lower-income taxpayers but while a $400 savings for some hypothetical middle income earner might make a difference, does an extra $60,000 for someone in the top 1% do anything but let them take another vacation or help purchase that vacation home?

We went from a brief period of balanced budgets around the millennium to unsustainable deficits now, squandering a long period of growth after the Great Recession. Then we exacerbated the issue by resuscitating the tried-and-failed trickle-down theory.

There are many problems with our tax code and economic policies, but please don't listen to skewed statistics trying to put lipstick on a pig.

Roger Edwards

Glen Ellyn