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According to a study prepared by the congressional Joint Economic Committee and verified by independent experts, the House Republican budget authored by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) would raise taxes on families making less than $200,000, even while it gives millionaires a tax cut:
So although households earning $100,000 to $200,000 a year would save about $7,000 from the lower tax rates in the GOP plan, those savings would be swamped by eliminating major deductions, according to the report by the Democratically controlled congressional Joint Economic Committee.
The net result: Married couples in that income range would pay an additional $2,700 annually to the Internal Revenue Service, on top of the tax increases that are scheduled to hit every American household when the George W. Bush-era cuts expire at the end of the year.
Households earning more than $1 million a year, meanwhile, could see a net tax cut of about $300,000 annually.
“Ryan seems to want to have his cake and eat it, too, and this report shows that you can’t,” added Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-NY). “If you want to cut taxes on the rich and not raise the deficit, you’re going to have to basically clobber the middle class.”
According to the non-partisan Tax Policy Center, the Republican budget would also slam those making less than $30,000 per year, because it doesn’t extend some of the tax cuts for low-income Americans that President Obama has signed into law:
Republicans, meanwhile, contend that these analyses are unfair because they have yet to lay out their entire plan, including exactly which tax deductions and loopholes they plan to do away with. But as the Tax Policy Center’s Roberton Williams said, “unless [Republicans] go after the tax preferences that benefit the wealthy, it’s really hard to undo the regressivity of the rate changes. You’ll be shifting the burden of the tax code toward the middle class.”
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