Shocker … or just fuzzy math?
============
For the record, I’m for tax cuts since the Feds waste so much of OUR money … but, as I’ve posted previously, I would have done them differently than DJT did.
And, I predicted that most American’s wouldn’t recognize the benefits of the tax cuts because (1) they don’t understand basic economics (e.g. the corporate cuts boosted the economy) … and hopelessly confuse ‘taxes paid’ with ‘refunds received’.
Still, I’m surprised when I see shock-intending headlines like this one.
Let’s dig a little deeper into that claim…
=============
The Hill summarizes the findings:
About two-thirds of Americans, 68%, say they paid the same or more in taxes for 2018 than the previous year, while less than a quarter said they paid less, according to a new Hill-HarrisX survey.
Hmmm.
Let’s look at the math.
Roughly half of Americans didn’t pay any income taxes prior to the Trump tax cuts … and didn’t pay any income taxes after the cuts.
So, let’s focus on the other half.
The Hill says that roughly 25% say they paid less.
That 25% has to come out of the half who paid taxes before.
In other words, half of tax payers say that they paid less in taxes …
What about the other half of taxpayers?
The survey found that “the more money individuals made, the more they tended to believe they paid in federal taxes”.
About 20% of tax payers thought that they paid more in taxes; about 30% thought they paid the same.
Putting it all together:
About 80% of tax payers think that their taxes either stayed the same or went down.
Way different than the broadly reported headlines, right?
=============
Follow on Twitter @KenHoma
#HomaFiles
Leave a Reply