The “Super Bowl of Tax” is finally here. While Republicans haven’t passed their massive package, nor has President Trump signed anything yet, from what we’re seeing so far of their plans, there’s no doubt that they’re quarterbacking to give more tax handouts to wealthy people like us.
House Republicans have made significant inroads over the last two weeks in their quest to enact conservatives’ sprawling domestic agenda of tax cuts for the ultra-rich coupled with service cuts for the public. The House Ways and Means Committee, the chamber’s chief tax-writing committee, advanced legislation last Wednesday. The House Budget Committee then worked to staple submissions from eleven committees into a single, Frankenstein-esque package. Their first attempt to pass the combined bill through committee failed, with conservatives revolting that it didn’t do enough to harm working people. Several closed-door meetings between hardliners and GOP leadership and one secret deal later, the committee voted to advance the package on Sunday. Now, House GOP leadership is working around the clock to get the bill to the House floor and pass it before a self-imposed Memorial Day deadline, which is proving difficult as different factions of the party fight to have their competing demands met over various parts of the bill.
We knew this moment was coming for a while, especially as the clock ticks on the expiring provisions of the GOP’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA). Republicans have been determined to extend—and double down on—those provisions from the get-go, and what we’re seeing now in the House is their first major step in making it happen.
As we anticipated, House Republicans’ defense, immigration, tax, and spending package is shaping up to be “big” and “beautiful” only for wealthy people like us. The legislation delivers blows to working people in just about every direction: it hurts Medicaid, would trigger cuts to Medicare, scales back the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (“SNAP,” better known as food stamps), and makes student loan payments more costly for students. For this week’s Closer Look though, we’d like to focus on the tax portion of the bill and how it delivers a windfall to rich people like us even as it harms working families. We’ll give a rundown of some of the major tax provisions of the bill, share some official numbers that underscore the obscene extent to which the wealthy and corporations benefit, and close by highlighting our own tax solution that lawmakers can take up instead to deliver actual relief to millions of Americans and transform the economy.
Tax Provisions of GOP’s package
Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to provide tax relief to working families, but the reality of what’s been included in the package thus far is significantly different. As with the GOP’s 2017 tax law, even provisions that are marketed as helping low- and middle-income households can be a mixed bag.
For example, the bill permanently extends the TCJA’s increased standard deduction and temporarily expands it through the end of 2028. The deduction jumps to $26,000 for joint filers (from $24,000); $19,500 for head of household filers (from $18,000); and $13,000 to all other filers (from $12,000). But by repealing personal exemptions, the bill can leave some working Americans worse off—particularly those who previously itemized and gave generously to charity. Likewise, the bill permanently extends the TCJA’s Child Tax Credit and temporarily increases the maximum credit to $2,500 through the end of 2028, but limits the ability of millions of families to qualify.
Meanwhile, Trump’s marquee proposals to help workers—allowing taxpayers to deduct their tips and overtime pay—are exactly as thoughtful as one would expect from the conman behind Trump University and the Trump memecoin. While sounding good, they will do little to help the vast majority of workers, encourage employers to abuse the system, and have too few protections against gaming the system.
Like with the original TCJA, however, most of the tax provisions included in Republicans’ new bill are straightforwardly and unabashedly bad as they shower the wealthy and corporations with yet another tax windfall. Some of the most backwards provisions include:
- Income tax rates and brackets—The bill permanently extends the TCJA’s lower rates and bracket thresholds for the federal income tax, which were overwhelmingly tilted to help high-income earners. It also increases the inflation adjustment for all brackets, with the exception of the top bracket with the 37% rate.
- Pass-through businesses—The bill permanently extends the TCJA’s deduction for pass-through businesses and increases it to 23% (from 20%). (Pass-throughs are sometimes mistakenly conflated with small businesses; while it’s true that the majority of businesses in America are pass-throughs, they are still overwhelmingly controlled by high earners.)
- Estate tax—The bill would permanently extend and expand the TCJA’s increased estate tax thresholds. In 2026, it will increase the threshold to $15 million for single filers (up from $14 million now) and to $30 million for married couples (up from $28 million now) and index them to inflation thereafter.
- Business tax breaks—The bill would temporarily reinstate a number of large tax breaks businesses received through the TCJA, including deductions for bonus depreciation, research and development, and net interest.
- Direct File—The bill would require the Treasury Department to officially terminate Direct File, an online program that allows taxpayers to file their taxes directly with the IRS for free which was created with funds from the Democrats’ 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The program was well-received by the public and was expanded to roughly 30 million filers in 2025, but this will all be for naught with its termination.
And while Trump, ever the conman, made a public show of calling for modest tax increases on millionaires and an end to the carried interest loophole, the House GOP bill includes neither. He of course couldn’t care less, as he’s twisting House Republicans’ arms to pass it without those provisions. Besides, he’s otherwise preoccupied accepting bribes in the form of luxury planes from Qatar and bids on his $TRUMP memecoin from everyone else in the world.
Official Numbers on Who the Bill Benefits
Republicans can “message” around the tax portion of their grotesque package as much as they want to, but the numbers don’t lie: it will dole out another unnecessarily massive tax break to wealthy people like us while making millions of American households worse off.
Yesterday, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy ran the numbers on the tax provisions of the package and found the following: under the bill, in 2026, the poorest 1% of earners would receive average tax benefits equal to 0.9% of their incomes while the richest 1% would receive benefits equal to 2.7% of their incomes.
But wait! It gets worse. Republicans are doing the same thing that they did in 2017: they’re making the most regressive parts of their bill that overwhelmingly benefit the rich permanent while designing the most progressive parts that benefit low- and middle-income families to expire at the end of 2028. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities took that into account, ran the numbers for 2029, and found that the bottom 20% would actually see an average tax increase of $100…while those making over $1 million would see an average cut of $79,620.
If you thought the worst parts were behind us, we’re sorry to tell you that there’s more to the story. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office ran their own numbers and factored in the bill’s harmful Medicaid and SNAP cuts in addition to the tax provisions. Their findings? In 2027, households in the bottom 10% would see their resources fall by 2%, while households in the top 10% would see their resources rise by 4%.
The Patriotic Millionaires’ Alternative
We’re still in the first quarter of the Tax Super Bowl, and things may change in the later stages of the game, especially once the Senate gets involved. But at this juncture, from where we’re sitting in the stadium, it’s clear that Republicans are on offense for Team Rich.
If Democrats want to put up a formidable defense, we have the answer for them: pass our “Cost of Living” Tax Cut Act, along with the other three pieces of legislation that comprise our AMERICA 250: The Money Agenda legislative platform. Our “Cost of Living” Tax Cut Act would do two things:
- Provide a Cost of Living Exemption (COLE) on federal taxes up to a reasonable threshold for the cost of living for a single adult with no children (approximately $40,000 per year)
- Implement a surtax on incomes over $1 million, transferring the responsibility for the lost revenues from the working class to the millionaire class. A 3% surtax would be instituted on any income over $1 million and an 8% surtax would be instituted on any income over $10 million.
It is a simple, clear, and effective way to get substantial tax relief into the hands of people that need it most – and ensure that rich people like us make up any of the revenue difference by finally being required to pay more than the pathetically little we pay now.
It may seem like all hope is lost with Republicans at the helm. But if there’s a silver lining to the mess going on with their bill, it’s that we have a strong alternative tax solution for lawmakers and the rest of America to rally behind. And even if we lose the Tax Super Bowl, the game’s not over and we still have the opportunity to fundamentally transform our tax code and create an economy that works for everyone.