The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act cut taxes substantially from 2018 through 2025. The resulting deficits are adding $1 to $2 trillion to the federal debt, according to official estimates from before and shortly after enactment.
The original legislation did little to spur economic growth during the pre-pandemic period. Economic growth barely changed in the two years after the law relative to the two years before the law. The rate of overall business investment slowed after the tax law's enactment, as did consumption.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) increased the standard deduction from $6,500 to $12,000 for individual filers, from $13,000 to $24,000 for joint returns, and from $9,550 to $18,000 for heads of household between 2017 and 2018. As before, the amounts are indexed annually for inflation.
President-elect Donald Trump campaigned on lowering the US corporate income tax rate to 15 percent. He made the same request in 2017 when Republicans passed their tax cuts, but Congress only cut the federal rate to 21 percent—down from the worldwide high of 35 percent.
TCJA made many large changes across multiple areas of the tax code, including most infamously reducing the corporate tax rate, increasing the standard deduction, and increasing the applicable exclusion amounts for estate taxes.
Key Policies from the Trump Tax Cuts Set to Expire if Congress Fails to Act: Congress only has 149 legislative days this year to act before the Trump tax cuts expire. The average taxpayer would see a 22 percent tax hike if the Trump tax cuts expire.
Under pre-Act law, the Internal Revenue Code included seven tax rates for individuals filing a tax return: 10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33%, 35% and 39.6%.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 was legislation passed by the 115th Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump.
Executive Summary. Replacing the will of the people with the whims of billionaires, the House Republican budget provides $4.5 trillion in tax cuts for the rich but does nothing to lower costs for American families.
Does the Trump Tax Plan Affect Capital Gains Tax Rates? Trump's tax law leaves existing capital gains tax rates and income tax brackets unchanged. Capital gains remain a key consideration for investors, especially those with taxable brokerage accounts, real estate holdings or long-term investment portfolios.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) or the Big Beautiful Bill (P.L. 119-21), is a U.S. federal statute passed by the 119th United States Congress containing tax and spending policies that form the core of President Donald Trump's second-term agenda. The bill was signed into law by Trump on July 4, 2025.
No Tax on Overtime is a provision that was included in a larger tax reform bill that passed in July 2025. It allows certain workers to deduct up to $12,500 in qualified overtime compensation from their taxable income on their federal income tax return. Joint filers can deduct up to $25,000.
The Trump tax cuts delivered on their promise to help make the U.S. economy stronger and provide more capital investment to help businesses expand and create jobs.
Quick Answer: $33.65 Per Hour
After federal and state deductions, your take-home pay ranges from $43,500 to $52,000 annually ($3,625-$4,333 monthly). Converting $70,000 a year to an hourly wage is straightforward: divide the annual salary by 2,080 work hours (40 hours per week × 52 weeks).
Multiple other analyses have found that higher debt and deficits lead to upward pressure on interest rates. Paying for the cost of extending and expanding tax cuts will directly lead to lower interest rates than extension without offsets. Lower interest rates mean lower borrowing costs throughout the economy.
If the individual tax cuts expire, taxpayers in all income groups would face higher and more complicated taxes. Machinery and equipment expensing is a key provision that, if allowed to expire, would especially harm capital-intensive industries like manufacturing.
FACT: The bill cuts taxes and lowers rates for all Americans. While the status quo tilts in favor of the wealthy, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act delivers tax relief for middle-income Americans by doubling the standard deduction and lowering rates for those who need it most.
In 2012, during the fiscal cliff, Obama overcame the sunset provisions and made the tax cuts permanent for single people earning less than $400,000 per year and couples making less than $450,000 per year, but did not stop the sunset provisions from applying to higher incomes, under the American Taxpayer Relief Act of ...
Lawmakers have passed legislation called the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” to make the expiring tax cuts permanent, provide additional tax cuts and changes to the tax code, and reduce spending. President Trump signed the bill into law on July 4, 2025.
How did the TCJA affect the federal budget outlook? The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act cut taxes substantially from 2018 through 2025. The resulting deficits are adding $1 to $2 trillion to the federal debt, according to official estimates from before and shortly after enactment.
President Trump's trade policies and the prospects of a tax code more beneficial for small businesses and employers are attracting more investment that will spur even more job creation. That was the effect of the 2017 Trump tax cuts.
The law cut the statutory corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent and made changes to many corporate tax breaks, expanding some while constraining others.
The top individual marginal income tax rate tended to increase over time through the early 1960s, with some additional bumps during war years. The top income tax rate reached above 90% from 1944 through 1963, peaking in 1944, when top taxpayers paid an income tax rate of 94% on their taxable income.
Nearly half (47%) of the tax cuts go to the top 1% of households, which get a tax break of nearly $215,000 a year. The bottom 20% get a tax cut of just $110. 2 Trump's plan will increase the deficit by $7.1 trillion,3 unless massive cuts are made to benefits and services that working Americans depend on.