Tuesday's election results, unfavorable nonpartisan analyses complicate the GOP's tax plans

President Trump addresses Congress.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

The Senate is scheduled to release its tax overhaul package on Thursday, and Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) says he will release an updated version of the House bill, but Republicans on Wednesday couldn't agree whether Tuesday's electoral beating would help focus congressional Republicans on passing a tax bill or hurt the effort. Complicating their political calculus are a series of nonpartisan analyses of the House tax plan that find some middle class families would actually pay more in taxes next year, and the number of beneficiaries would shrink dramatically by 2017.

An analysis released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, for example, found that 9 percent of middle income taxpayers (earning $48,600 to $86,100 a year) would get a tax hike next year and 31 percent of that bracket would face higher taxes in a decade. A 76 percent majority of all U.S. taxpayers would get a tax cut in 2018, with middle class families averaging a $800 boost, the Tax Policy Center found, but "the largest cuts, in dollars and as a percentage of after-tax income, would accrue to higher-income households." The Joint Committee on Taxation, the nonpartisan tax analysis organ for Congress, predicted similar results earlier this week.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.