Face It: You (Probably) Got a Tax Cut

[Anonymous]

I'm single and DCUM poor - I work at a not for profit and made $47,000 in 2017 and made $47,918 in 2018.

Last year I got a slight refund of $124 and this year my refund was $692. Nothing else changed - contributed the same amount to my IRA and paid the same amount in student loan interest.

I'm the only person I know among my friends who got a larger refund this year than last. Most are seeing less of a refund or owing this year.

I know my parents, who only owed $1,200 last year owed over $4k this year.

[Anonymous]

For all the endless bellyaching about how people were getting killed by loss of SALT, all, nearly all of your taxes went down.

I admit there is a doughnut hold around $200-$250K in HHI with high deductions where some do pay more.

1- It's not that much more.
2- If it is, count me as a fan of not paying for $30% of your mortgages and property taxes.
3- Any tax reform has distributional winners and losers.
4- As shockingly few people understand, information on refunds, marginal rate, or changes in deductions are not sufficient to determine change in tax liability. The only way to do this is to redo your 2017 taxes with 2018 numbers (even comparing average rates is uninformative if level or type of income changed).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm single and DCUM poor - I work at a not for profit and made $47,000 in 2017 and made $47,918 in 2018.

Last year I got a slight refund of $124 and this year my refund was $692. Nothing else changed - contributed the same amount to my IRA and paid the same amount in student loan interest.

I'm the only person I know among my friends who got a larger refund this year than last. Most are seeing less of a refund or owing this year.

I know my parents, who only owed $1,200 last year owed over $4k this year.

How much you owe is irrelevant because the withholding tables changed. You have to compare your effective rate last year to this year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We stopped paying almost all our AMT penalty but lost almost all our savings in SALT penalty. So yes we got a tax cut, but in the low 4 figures on a 250kish total tax bill.

Thank you for demonstrating classic DCUM idiocy. Since you paid AMT last year, you literally had no SALT deduction last year. Therefore, you face no SALT penalty this year since you had no SAlLT benefit last year

You are almost as stupid as people comparing the amounts of refunds between tax seasons or those comparing marginal rates. It's amazing that the United States survives as a self-governing society with the idiots on DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We paid $95 more in tax then last year. But our taxable income went up @40k while our actual income went up 0k. That’s going to hurt when the tax rate cuts phase out. HHI 185k, 3 kids.

Our HHI was 178k, only 1k more than last year but our "taxable income" also was like 30k more, so we ended up paying $215 more than last year. I had to run the calculations both ways in turbo tax-ended up being way better on state taxes to itemize even though it was slightly worse on the federal side.

The 150k-low200k HHI in the high SALT states really lost out. They weren't hit by AMT before so that change didn't help them, but the loss of the exemptions and the 10k limit, as well as the other deductions that were lost, really dicked them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For all the endless bellyaching about how people were getting killed by loss of SALT, all, nearly all of your taxes went down.

I admit there is a doughnut hold around $200-$250K in HHI with high deductions where some do pay more.

1- It's not that much more.
2- If it is, count me as a fan of not paying for $30% of your mortgages and property taxes.
3- Any tax reform has distributional winners and losers.
4- As shockingly few people understand, information on refunds, marginal rate, or changes in deductions are not sufficient to determine change in tax liability. The only way to do this is to redo your 2017 taxes with 2018 numbers (even comparing average rates is uninformative if level or type of income changed).

You didn't see the pp who posted on this thread who only made 178k and had a net tax increase?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We stopped paying almost all our AMT penalty but lost almost all our savings in SALT penalty. So yes we got a tax cut, but in the low 4 figures on a 250kish total tax bill.

Thank you for demonstrating classic DCUM idiocy. Since you paid AMT last year, you literally had no SALT deduction last year. Therefore, you face no SALT penalty this year since you had no SAlLT benefit last year

You are almost as stupid as people comparing the amounts of refunds between tax seasons or those comparing marginal rates. It's amazing that the United States survives as a self-governing society with the idiots on DCUM.

Yeah. So shocking that an idiocracy that elected Trump doesn’t understand taxes. Said no one ever.

[Anonymous]

Gee... Didn't realize that the standard DCUN idiot voted for Trump.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We stopped paying almost all our AMT penalty but lost almost all our savings in SALT penalty. So yes we got a tax cut, but in the low 4 figures on a 250kish total tax bill.

Thank you for demonstrating classic DCUM idiocy. Since you paid AMT last year, you literally had no SALT deduction last year. Therefore, you face no SALT penalty this year since you had no SAlLT benefit last year

You are almost as stupid as people comparing the amounts of refunds between tax seasons or those comparing marginal rates. It's amazing that the United States survives as a self-governing society with the idiots on DCUM.

Okay, I'll try to use short sentences so you can understand. Last year, paid AMT. This year, paid almost as much in tax. Why? Because despite tax cut, lost SALT deduction that AMT was screwing us out of. Without SALT deduction, back where we started.

[Anonymous]

Law firm partner. Taxes increased, as expected. The tax "cut" was basically a code revision designed to require UMC/90th percentile blue state professionals to subsidize billionaires, real estate developers, corporations, and others who made out like bandits. Effective tax rate went up less than one percent, but it's still a tax increase and still a subsidy to those who don't need it. Loss of AMT more than offset by loss of SALT deduction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For all the endless bellyaching about how people were getting killed by loss of SALT, all, nearly all of your taxes went down.

I admit there is a doughnut hold around $200-$250K in HHI with high deductions where some do pay more.

1- It's not that much more.
2- If it is, count me as a fan of not paying for $30% of your mortgages and property taxes.
3- Any tax reform has distributional winners and losers.
4- As shockingly few people understand, information on refunds, marginal rate, or changes in deductions are not sufficient to determine change in tax liability. The only way to do this is to redo your 2017 taxes with 2018 numbers (even comparing average rates is uninformative if level or type of income changed).

You didn't see the pp who posted on this thread who only made 178k and had a net tax increase?

Not that PP, but we're at $190K and paid more too. Not a huge amount more (a whopping $7, actually!) so more or less a wash there, but maddening nonetheless because there is a huge cost to this tax cut in the form of the ballooning national deficit that we will collectively need to pay for in the years to come in the form of future tax increases (remember that the current cuts expire in six years, except for corporations) or program cuts. So we are paying the same taxes for less benefit, which is crappy, especially considering that people at much higher incomes are paying dramatically less.

[Anonymous]

90% pay less or same. 10% pay more. End of story.

The 10% are probably over represented on DCUM hence all the complaining and screaming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:90% pay less or same. 10% pay more. End of story.

The 10% are probably over represented on DCUM hence all the complaining and screaming.

Not too many billionaires on DCUM posting about their cuts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:90% pay less or same. 10% pay more. End of story.

The 10% are probably over represented on DCUM hence all the complaining and screaming.

Will those 90% still have Social Security and Medicare in 10 years?

Humans are terrible at balancing short term gains against long term consequences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We stopped paying almost all our AMT penalty but lost almost all our savings in SALT penalty. So yes we got a tax cut, but in the low 4 figures on a 250kish total tax bill.

Thank you for demonstrating classic DCUM idiocy. Since you paid AMT last year, you literally had no SALT deduction last year. Therefore, you face no SALT penalty this year since you had no SAlLT benefit last year

You are almost as stupid as people comparing the amounts of refunds between tax seasons or those comparing marginal rates. It's amazing that the United States survives as a self-governing society with the idiots on DCUM.

Okay, I'll try to use short sentences so you can understand. Last year, paid AMT. This year, paid almost as much in tax. Why? Because despite tax cut, lost SALT deduction that AMT was screwing us out of. Without SALT deduction, back where we started.

I'll use shorter sentences. You paid slightly less because there was a small net cut in taxes at this income level. I was in the same boat and now take the standard deduction. You just don't like having other taxpayers not subsidizing your state tax payment

The purpose and effect of the tax law was threefold:
Cut taxes on capital income
Simplify (Fewer Schedule A and AMT)
A modest tax cut, concentrated at lower income levels.

I understand why politicians sold it primarily as a tax cut for labor, but it just wasn't. If the news media we're to get their collective heads out of their asses, perhaps we could have reasonable political discussions.