{"slug":"trump-tax-cuts-jobs-act-corporate-windfall","title":"Tax Cuts and Jobs Act: $1.5 Trillion Cut Favoring Corporations and the Wealthy","date":"2017-12-22","lastUpdated":"2019-04-15","description":"The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, signed December 22, 2017, was the largest rewrite of the U.S. tax code since 1986. It permanently cut the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, created a new 20% deduction for pass-through income (which primarily benefits wealthy business owners), and temporarily reduced individual income tax rates that were set to expire in 2025. The Congressional Budget Office scored the bill at approximately $1.5 trillion in additional deficit over 10 years. Multiple independent analyses found the primary beneficiaries were corporations and the highest-income households; Trump's claim that the tax cut would 'pay for itself' was widely rejected by economists.","summary":"The TCJA was passed through the budget reconciliation process with no Democratic votes; the process required the individual tax cuts to expire (via budget rules) while making the corporate rate cut permanent. Trump claimed the cut would generate economic growth sufficient to pay for itself — a prediction rejected by the CBO, the JCT, and most economists. The $1.9 trillion corporate stock buyback surge in 2018 documented that the primary immediate effect was share buybacks rather than business investment or wage growth. The Trump family directly benefited from the pass-through deduction. Trump signed it into law and called it 'one of the great Christmas gifts to middle-income people.'","category":"corruption","severity":"major","ongoing":false,"sources":[{"url":"https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/20/us/politics/tax-bill-republicans-congress.html","title":"Tax Bill Passes Senate and Is Signed by Trump","publisher":"The New York Times"},{"url":"https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-what-happened/2018/12/22/a2c09a48-040f-11e9-b5df-5d3874f1ac36_story.html","title":"A year after the tax cuts: What happened?","publisher":"The Washington Post"},{"url":"https://apnews.com/article/trump-tax-cuts-jobs-act-analysis","title":"One year of tax cuts: More buybacks than wage gains","publisher":"The Associated Press"},{"url":"https://www.cbo.gov/publication/53267","title":"The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2018 to 2028","publisher":"Congressional Budget Office"}],"draft":false,"status":"published","tags":["taxes","TCJA","corporations","inequality","first-term","deficit","corruption"],"relatedEntries":[],"timeline":[{"date":"2017-11-02","title":"House tax bill introduced — 7-week legislative sprint","summary":"House Ways and Means Committee introduces the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act with limited committee hearings. The Senate writes its own version concurrently. The process is the fastest major tax legislation since 1986."},{"date":"2017-12-01","title":"Senate passes TCJA 51-49 at 2 AM","summary":"The Senate passes the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act 51-49 in a middle-of-the-night vote. No Democrats vote for it. Bob Corker (R-TN) is the only Republican to vote against."},{"date":"2017-12-22","title":"Trump signs TCJA into law","summary":"Trump signs the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, calling it 'one of the great Christmas gifts to middle-income people.' Corporate tax rate cut from 35% to 21% is permanent; individual cuts expire after 2025."},{"date":"2018-12-22","title":"One year later: $1.1 trillion in stock buybacks","summary":"Analysis one year after passage documents that corporate stock buybacks surged to $1.1 trillion in 2018 — more than double the prior year — as companies returned the tax windfall to shareholders rather than investing in wages or capital."}],"location":{"name":"Washington, D.C.","lat":38.9072,"lng":-77.0369},"custom":{"era":"first-term","posture":"reported","warCrimeClassification":"enabling","internationalLaw":[],"iccRelevance":false,"victims":"Working- and middle-class Americans whose tax cuts expire in 2025 while corporate cuts are permanent; future generations bearing the $1.5 trillion increase in national debt; public services funded by tax revenue","structuredPerpetrators":[{"name":"Donald Trump","role":"President; signed TCJA into law; personally benefited from pass-through deduction; made false claims about the bill paying for itself","institution":"White House"}],"updateLog":[{"date":"2019-04-15","summary":"Updated with first full year analysis data."}]}}