Nearly 82 percent of a Republican tax provision hidden away in the coronavirus relief fund will go directly to the nation’s millionaires and billionaires, a non-partisan congressional body reported Tuesday.
The clause, entered into the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act by Senate Republicans, temporarily suspends a limit to the amount that owners of ‘pass through’ structured businesses can deduct against their non-business income – including capital gains – to reduce their tax liability.
Analysis by the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) discovered the suspension overwhelmingly benefits high earners, with hedge-fund investors and real estate businesses set to be the biggest winners.
JCT determined that just three percent of the benefits will go to Americans earning less than $100,000 per-year.
‘This analysis shows that while Democrats fought for unemployment insurance and small business relief, a top priority of President Trump and his allies in Congress was another massive tax cut for the wealthy,’ said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who prompted the probe, after the report was published Tuesday.
‘Congress should repeal this rotten, un-American giveaway and use the revenue to help workers battling through this crisis.’
Acknowledging the overwhelming financial and health complications the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic is posing to working class families in particular, Whitehouse added that ‘it’s a scandal for Republicans to loot American taxpayers in the midst of an economic and human tragedy.’
Suspending the limitation is set to cost taxpayers in excess of $90 billion this year alone, coming as part of a series of tax amendments that’s expected to add nearly $170 billion to the national deficit by 2030.
The JCT’s report also highlighted the impact of another tax change in the CARES Act that allows firms to write off 100 percent of their losses, rather than 80 percent as a 2017 Republican tax law had previously allowed.
The CARES Act was approved in Congress last month and includes hundreds of billions of dollars to increase unemployment benefits, send $1,200 checks to families across the country, and provide small businesses with immediate relief.
Also included was more than $500 billion in tax cuts, including a payroll tax holiday as well as tax incentives for employers who keep workers on the payroll.
The JCT’s analysis came after Whitehouse and Doggett sent a letter to the president’s administration, requesting information that could explain the origin of the GOP provisions to the relief package.
The investigation was also prompted after reports surfaced that Trump, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and real estate investors in the president’s ‘inner circle’ could also be key beneficiaries of the tax giveaways listed in the legislation
Attempting to contextualize the impact of the tax changes on Tuesday, Rep. Lloyd Doggett pointed out that ‘for those earning $1 million annually, a tax break buried in the recent coronavirus relief legislation is so generous that its total cost is more than total new funding for all hospitals in America and more than the total provided to all state and local governments.
‘Someone wrongly seized on this health emergency to reward ultrarich beneficiaries, likely including the Trump family, with a tax loophole not available to middle class families,’ Doggett continued. ‘This net operating loss loophole is a loser that should be repealed.’
Fellow Congressional Democrat Barbara Lee also jumped to criticize the ‘Trojan horse’ provision, blasting Republicans for sneaking in ‘tax breaks and corporate giveaways for their wealthy friends’, instead of ‘giving relief to Americans who are struggling to make ends meet’.
‘We should be prioritizing the needs of working-class Americans — not millionaires,’ she said on Twitter.
But…but…it’s the democrats?!
It’s a big club, and YOU ain’t in it!
Exactly right Martist! All these Trumptarded “right wing” idiots currently involved in “Operation Gridlock” (military term there!) need to snap the f!@k out of the mental coma they’ve been in most of their lives! The sentiment might be right but the execution is VERY questionable. Divide & Conquer is how they’ve ALWAYS controlled & culled the masses. The “freedom” these protesters talk about & adorn their posters & vehicles with is really just “Free-to-be-dumb” because they still belong to a managed collective “side” just as those on the “left” do. The opportunity we have at the moment is being co-opted by the same people as usual behind the scenes. The “protests” I see are nothing more than “manangers” channeling the anger of the people into the wrong direction as they’ve always attempted to do & have done many times before. If this time the masses cannot finally get it & shun this left/right BS once & for all then, as we’ve all said before at some stage, they deserve everything that’s coming their way. Unfortunately that means, again as usual, that as a result A LOT of innocent people will suffer from hereon in. Do we really want that now that this has turned “global”? I THINK NOT! This fight has to be different & these things/creatures at the “top” have to start suffering for a change instead of us all fighting each other for their pleasure. The REAL spark will happen when these guilty things/creatures, NOT their scapegoats this time, start dropping, preferably in numbers & in more than one country at a time (from a safe distance if you get my drift) 😉