Would the GOP Senate bill raise or lower your taxes?

(Image credit: Whitney Curtis/Getty Images)

last updated 30 November 2017

At a rally in Missouri on Wednesday night, President Trump marketed the $5 trillion tax bill hurtling through the Senate this week as a "big, beautiful Christmas present" for Americans. "With Trump as your president, you will be seeing 'Merry Christmas' again," he said. "And it's going to be done with a big, beautiful tax cut." And in 2019, more than 60 percent of U.S. households would get tax cuts of more than $100, according to an official analysis of winners and losers from the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation given to The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. In the same year, 30 percent of Americans would see no real change to their taxes, and 8 percent would pay more.

But the number of winners shrinks and the losers grow steadily with each year, until 2027, when 16 percent of households — mostly wealthy ones — get tax cuts, 61 percent would see no significant cut or gain, and 23 percent of households would pay more. Fifty-seven percent of households earning $1 million or more a year would get tax cuts of at least $500 by 2027, while 36 percent of millionaire households would pay $500 more in taxes, though the analysis does not take into consideration changes to the estate tax.

There are lots of other losers and winners in the sprawling legislation — for example deficit hawks, universities and college students, renewable energy companies, Medicare recipients, and Affordable Care Act customers (losers), and partisan churches, oil companies, and trickle-down economists (winners). Also, roughly 100 percent of corporations will get a significant tax cut. Broadly, people in blue areas are more likely to pay more while people in red areas are more likely to pay less.

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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.