GOP Tax Plan Unveiled

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In this Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2017, photo, U.S. President Donald Trump speaks in Indianapolis. How do you pay for the president's proposed $5.8 trillion tax cut? For Trump and Republican congressional leaders, that is the mostly unanswered $5,800,000,000,000 question. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
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In this Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2017, photo, U.S. President Donald Trump speaks in Indianapolis. How do you pay for the president's proposed $5.8 trillion tax cut? For Trump and Republican congressional leaders, that is the mostly unanswered $5,800,000,000,000 question. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
In this Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2017, photo, U.S. President Donald Trump speaks in Indianapolis. How do you pay for the president’s proposed $5.8 trillion tax cut? For Trump and Republican congressional leaders, that is the mostly unanswered $5,800,000,000,000 question. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have unveiled the first major revamp of the nation’s tax code in a generation.

The sweeping, nearly $6 trillion tax cut would deeply reduce levies for corporations, simplify everyone’s brackets and nearly double the standard deduction used by most Americans. Trump declares the plan would provide badly needed tax relief for the middle class, but there are too many gaps in the proposal to know how it actually would affect taxpayers.

 

 

There are also major questions about how it would be paid for and how much it might add to the soaring $20 trillion national debt. An organization that advocates for state legislatures says it’s “dismayed” the Republican tax cut proposal unveiled Wednesday would do away with a deduction for state and local taxes paid. The National Conference of State Legislatures says the deduction has existed in the federal tax code since its inception. The group says “tens of millions of middle-class taxpayers of every political affiliation” would experience a greater tax burden if the deduction were eliminated. The group says the deduction’s elimination will also impede states in their efforts to invest in education and other public services.

About a third of tax filers itemize deductions on their federal income tax returns. The Tax Policy Center says virtually all who do claim a deduction for state and local taxes paid. President Donald Trump is issuing a warning shot to Indiana’s Democratic senator: Support my tax overhaul or I’ll campaign against you next year.

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