Skip to content Skip to footer

GOP’s Tax Plan Would Raise Taxes by Over $1,000 Annually for Poorest Americans

A new report found that GOP Sen. Rick Scott’s tax plan would disproportionately tax the poor.

Sen. Rick Scott does a TV news interview in the Hart Senate Office Building on March 8, 2022.

Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-Florida) plan to force every American to owe income tax in his recently released platform for the Republican Party would raise taxes by over $1,000 for the bottom 40 percent of income earners, a new analysis found.

In a report released on Monday, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) estimated that the poorest Americans would be the most affected by Scott’s plan meaning that the GOP’s tax plan would essentially be to tax the poor.

The poorest 20 percent of Americans, who make $12,300 a year on average, would owe about $1,050 more in federal taxes, or about 9 percent of their income. The next 20 percent, who make $34,700 on average, would owe $1,390 more, or 4 percent of their income, ITEP found. The middle 20 percent of Americans would owe about $500 more on average. The top 5 percent would essentially owe $0 more.

Scott’s outline says that he wants to make sure all Americans pay some income tax in order “to have skin in the game.”

“Currently over half of Americans pay no income tax,” Scott wrote. Indeed, a large portion of Americans don’t owe federal income taxes. Many don’t owe taxes because they simply don’t make enough income to qualify. People with disabilities, retirees and other Social Security beneficiaries don’t owe taxes because much of the program is tax-exempt.

Some people don’t owe federal income taxes because they receive tax credits; because of programs like the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit, many Americans have a negative tax burden.

ITEP calculated these estimates by assuming that Scott’s plan would make it so that all Americans owed at least $1 in taxes, taking credits into account. So, if a household had an income tax liability of $1,000, and would normally have received a credit of $1,500 from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), they would not receive their expected $500 tax refund under Scott’s plan, ITEP wrote.

The poorest states would be most affected by this plan, the report found. Over 50 percent of Mississippi residents would see a tax increase, with other Southern states like West Virginia, Arkansas, Louisiana and Alabama trailing closely behind.

If Scott’s plan were passed, and carried out in the way that ITEP interpreted, it would have a devastating impact on the people in the country who are most in need.

According to the Federal Reserve, about 36 percent of Americans said in 2020 that they would have difficulty paying for an emergency expense of $400, with 12 percent saying that they wouldn’t be able to. This statistic is similar to that of previous years, despite the fact that COVID relief packages, extra unemployment insurance and expanded child tax credits helped lower financial worries for the public, even if they were laid off during the pandemic.

A recent survey showed that a large portion of Americans would have difficulty paying an emergency $1,000 bill. About 56 percent of survey respondents said that they would have to take steps like charging a credit card and paying it over time, cutting other expenses or borrowing the money in order to pay the bill.

Scott’s tax plan reflects Republicans’ stubborn opposition to raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations. Some of the world’s richest people, like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, regularly owe $0 or an otherwise miniscule amount in taxes. But GOP lawmakers have worked to maintain low tax rates for the richest Americans and slash funding for the IRS so that they can keep dodging taxes.

Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn

Dear Truthout Community,

If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.

We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.

Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.

There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.

Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?

It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.

We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.

We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.

Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.

We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.

With love, rage, and solidarity,

Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy