Having ‘oversold’ Trump’s tax reform plan to the market and the public, it appears the former is disappointed (for now) in the talking points that have been released so far.
As discussed previously, the bill keeps a top rate of 39.6% for the highest-earners and doubles the standard deduction for middle class families. It expands the child tax credit to $1,600 from $1,000 and will not make any changes to the 401(k) plans. The bill also ‘makes no changes to the popular retirement savings options that Americans have today – including 401(k)’s and Individual Retirement Accounts, or I. R. A.s. Americans will be able to continuing making both traditional, pretax contributions and ‘Roth’ contributions in the way that works best for them.’
So far so good; where there will be problems however, is that the bill also includes the repeal of an itemized deduction for medical expenses, a key provision for households with extraordinary health-care costs. It also repeals the tax credit for adoption and the deduction of student-loan interest. The bill also limits the home mortgage interest deduction: for new home purchases interest would be deductible only on loans up to $500,000, down from $1 million, although existing loans would be grandfathered.
A key issue will be the treatment of the state and local tax deduction, which lawmakers are proposing to cap at $10,000. That will not be enough for Republicans in some high-tax states, where middle-class families make heavy use of the deduction. As the NYT notes, “the compromise, as it had been sketched out this week, would preserve the deduction for property taxes, but not for state and local income taxes, and it appeared as if there would be a cap on the deduction. But at first glance, it did not appear as if that was enough to win over all of the New York and New Jersey members.”
This post was published at Zero Hedge on Nov 2, 2017.
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