
Show HN: Tax plan impact calculator - nsedlet
http://taxulator.com/
======
aleyan
May I recommend [http://taxplancalculator.com/](http://taxplancalculator.com/)
? It takes in to account state taxes, which potentially can make a difference
between a tax cut and a tax hike. It also shows you an estimate of your
federal taxes under the current laws, so that you can ascertain its precision
against last years returns.

Its author, Maxim Lott, is a journalist and has been tweaking the calculations
over the past couple of weeks reflecting the latest changes in the bills. You
may have seen his predictive markets analysis site [1] in the run up to 2016
US Presidential Election.

As a matter of disclosure, the author is a friend and I helped him debug a
couple of small issues.

[1]
[https://www.electionbettingodds.com/](https://www.electionbettingodds.com/)

~~~
dahdum
No matter what income I put for California, it always says:

"No impact from end of state and local deductions"

Same at $30k, $300k, and $1M. I don't think it's accounting for SALT at all.

~~~
gok
You need to check the itemized deduction box

~~~
dahdum
My bad, thank you. As expected, I pay a bunch more under both these plans.

~~~
foobarbazetc
And get a lot less. Hooray.

The problem with a lot of reporting on these tax “plans” is that it doesn’t
take into account the massive cuts that’ll be needed once this thing gets
passed.

That and any increases to health insurance costs due to repeal/uncertainty/etc
wipe out any saving for most people.

But hey if I could lobby this easily to get my pet thing into a tax bill I
would.

------
tvanantwerp
Doesn't have business income or capital gains, which is pretty important to
have considering the contents of the GOP plan. The pass-through rates in the
bills will have a big effect on small business owners.

Edit: The more I play with this, the more flaws I find. I work at a tax policy
think tank and I've been involved with more than a few tax calculators, and
this one isn't reliable. It fails basic tests, like applying the standard
deduction if itemized deductions are less than that amount.

Second edit: Here's a tip. It's a lot easier to calculate marginal rates on
income if you go through the brackets backward rather than forward. That way,
you just check if income is >= the current bracket threshold. If yes, subtract
threshold from income, add that multiplied by the rate to the running total of
taxes owed, and move to the next bracket. Else, just move to the next bracket.
Way easier than what you're doing.

~~~
carrben12
Thanks for feedback. We will add the itemized v standard deduction minimizer
soon. We thought we’d let user direct but I agree we should take the min and
change that.

Re tax brackets, we are looking to add state tax soon so it is much easier not
to hardcore the running totals. The computation time is insignificant but code
is cleaner with our current method, IMO.

------
pianom4n
This doesn't include Pease, which makes quite a difference.

I don't believe the AMT exemptions you're using are correct (although they are
widely reported). The bill updates the "original" AMT amounts from 2012, which
need to be inflation adjusted.

I made these accurate graphs that include everything. They also compute your
state taxes for you.

Senate: [https://jsfiddle.net/4ec6eLz5/](https://jsfiddle.net/4ec6eLz5/)
House: [https://jsfiddle.net/bsjryfLo/](https://jsfiddle.net/bsjryfLo/)

~~~
carrben12
Thank you for feedback! Indeed we didn’t include Pease, and we will look to
add that shortly.

Re AMT, When I read the bill my interpretation was that the new levels were
the correct numbers for 2018 and increase from there. I’m certainly not a
lawyer and relied on other ‘widely reported’ interpretations. Given how many
reported things turned out to be at least moderately innacureatr when we did
fact check them, it would not surprise me if you are right.

I really like your site and the graphs. The fixed property tax deduction seems
like a limitation (I personally pay close to 2x your NY rate and have some
friends who pay more) but it certainly does some things that we don’t, Pease
included. Had I found your site a week ago we likely would have had to build
our own!

We made our code available on GitHub so by all means feel free to contribute
and improve it if you like!

~~~
pianom4n
You're right about the AMT. I misread the bill the first time.

This means the "40%" figure being thrown around is off, it's only a 30%
reduction

------
gnicholas
It would be more useful if they made it clear what has been factored in here.
As is mentioned elsewhere, the bills have to be reconciled, and there are
significant variables remaining. The SALT deduction is still up in the air, as
are the details around mortgage interest. For people in some states, these two
details could swing things between saving thousands and paying thousands
extra.

edit: should have included property tax, which is more of an issue than
mortgage interest for existing homeowners.

~~~
carrben12
Sorry about that. We need to add more info. The code is available on github.
The latest info we could get our hands on. 10k cap on property tax deduction
in both house and senate bill and no state income tax deduction in either. No
change to mortgage deduction as current mortgages are grandfathered in under
both plans.

------
mbil
It would be cool if the govt had to develop an open-source tax estimator
whenever tax-change bills were introduced (or make modifications to some base
tool). An iteration of a tax bill would be presented alongside the tax-
estimator tool so that citizens and businesses could run real numbers through
the hypothetical tax-changes.

~~~
carrben12
Totally agree. And it could also show net impact to the deficit/surplus (yeah,
right) across the whole population given the gov had all that data. Would be
awesome.

------
beager
All the calculations seem to happen here:

[https://github.com/nick264/gop-tax-plan-
calculator/blob/mast...](https://github.com/nick264/gop-tax-plan-
calculator/blob/master/client/utils/calculator.js)

Cannot speak to the soundness of the calculations, but there looks to be a ton
of guesswork involved, and it does seem fairly simplified in light of the size
of the bills being considered.

~~~
carrben12
On a dollar impact basis, there wasn’t much guesswork at all. What there was
was a bunch of disparate contradictory sources online so we had to plow
through that, given that reading through and internalizing the legislation
(both old and new) was quite the bear. A number of folks have already made
suggestions on github which is great (and appreciated).

I wish we had documented every hard coded number with a source but we only
started doing that at the very end of project when we were reconciling
different sources. We plan on documenting everything going forward with a
source.

------
njarboe
As the tax plan has not yet been finalized, I'm not sure what the use of this
calculator is. You don't really know what your new taxes will be yet. I would
wait until it is reconciled and signed to worry about that. YMMV.

If you want to influence the outcome of what is in the tax bill, then finding
the thing in it that you don't like the most (and preferably it is in only in
one of the bills) and advocating for that to be removed or changed is probably
the most useful. Academia was up in arms about losing its special tax break on
tuitions (only in House bill), got a bunch of press, and it looks like that
might be left out in reconciliation.

~~~
dwg
Even though the bills are not finalized I think people would like to have an
idea of what changes they may be facing, and it also benefits people who like
to get informed before debating the issue with others.

------
scroot
This only tells me what would happen next year. What about 5, 7, 10 years out?

~~~
carrben12
Working on it ;)

------
eranation
Stupid question: in all of those calculators, I never know if I should include
my personal income or household income (including my spouse). Is it an obvious
thing that everyone knows? as it's never in the (?) tooltip... in any
calculator I found online (I'm an expat, so perhaps I just don't get the
obvious)

~~~
gnicholas
If you file jointly as a married couple, you would include both. But if your
spouse is a not a US taxpayer, then you'e likely not filing jointly. In that
case, only your income would apply.

But take any of these with a huge grain of salt, because expats have very
different rules to play by, including some generous exemptions.

~~~
hartator
Expats have generous exemptions?

~~~
tvanantwerp
Currently US expats can exclude up to $102,100 of foreign earned income.
However, you're still required to file US taxes if you're a US citizen.
Doesn't matter if you were born overseas to American parents and have never
been to America; still gotta file. The US is weird like that.

~~~
hartator
Oh, I thought you meant EU expats in the US.

~~~
gnicholas
Ah, I see the misunderstanding. Although I would note that if you are not a
citizen or permanent resident, then I believe your foreign-source income is
not subject to US tax. So for example if you had a home in another country
that you rented out, that wouldn't be taxable in the US even though it would
be for a similarly-situated US citizen.

~~~
tvanantwerp
Can't promise the IRS would see it that way. This is just something I'm not
sure about, but my wife was an immigrant to the US and they weren't shy about
asking her about foreign assets.

------
DownWithTaxes
This has an intuitive interface and computes quickly. With 2 competing bills
in the House and Senate that haven't yet been reconciled and formalized, a
calculator like this is never going to be perfect, but at least we can begin
to see the implications these proposals could have on our tax liability.

------
RyanShook
Very nice tool. Added to PH:
[https://www.producthunt.com/posts/taxulator](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/taxulator)

------
brnd4n
I'll add the calculator I built:
[https://www.republicantaxcalculator.com](https://www.republicantaxcalculator.com).
It takes into account state and property tax deductions as well as some of the
other major changes. Github here:
[https://github.com/BrendanAndrade/taxplan](https://github.com/BrendanAndrade/taxplan)

------
drstewart
Maybe I'm just daft, but this tool is a bit confusing at first because I
didn't realize it wasn't comparing the difference between itemizing now and
taking the standard deduction under the new plan (and there isn't a way to do
that without manually crunching the numbers). Or better said, it doesn't pick
your best deduction under each plan like you would if you were actually filing
taxes.

------
brockwhittaker
This doesn't account for SALT deductions it seems, which is a huge reason why
instead of my bill going down by 10% or so, it goes up about 5%.

------
chrisp_dc
I think this calculator is counting "State/Local Income Taxes" as a credit
instead of a deduction. Input a salary of $60,000 and a $6300 deduction into
"State/Local Income Taxes".

$6300 was the single filer standard deduction amount from 2016. It shows
different outputs when toggling between itemized and standard deduction.

------
intopieces
I thought SALT and Student Loan deductions were eliminated? They're still
listed here. Am I missing something?

~~~
zrail
The Senate and House plans do different things with these deductions (house
eliminates, senate curtails) and it's not at all clear what will come out of
conference.

------
dwg
Looking really good!

I recently started working on something similar:
[http://politisee.com](http://politisee.com), with a little different goal.
Rather than calculate the net result for a single person, Politisee for a
single person, Politisee tries to summarize and compare plans, and shed light
on how they perform broadly to society (i.e. at all income levels). However I
do plan to add the personal side too. For now I'll be linking to yours.

One of the challenges of the broad approach is getting everything into an
apples-to-apples comparison. I'm definitely going to be taking some
inspiration from your work.

------
rcollyer
The personal exemption is incorrect. It doesn't add the children into the
total ([https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-
pdf/f1040.pdf](https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040.pdf)), but you can enter
it by hand. Also, Student Loan Interest is an above the line deduction (line
33 on 1040), i.e. you can deduct it regardless of whether or not you itemize.

------
matthjensen
If this interests you, I would also recommend checking out [http://open-
source-economics.github.io/Tax-Calculator/](http://open-source-
economics.github.io/Tax-Calculator/) and [https://github.com/open-source-
economics/tax-calculator](https://github.com/open-source-economics/tax-
calculator).

------
maerF0x0
Would like it to consider IRA/401k contributions.

~~~
loeg
Just put in the income net of deductible 401(k) contributions as "gross
income."

~~~
dboreham
....net...gross

~~~
loeg
There is a reason "gross" is in quotation marks. That subtraction is more or
less accurate.

------
thebigspacefuck
I have my 2016 tax return pulled up and filled everything out. It looks like
I'll pay a few hundred more due to the State and Local tax deductions being
removed. :\

Every calculator on here gives a different result though.

------
ddebernardy
Is this calculator accurate? It seems everyone no matter the income seems to
benefit somehow.

Or is it that Trump, like Reagan, is about to grow the US debt by untold
amounts?

~~~
adventured
I'm not sure what the point of the Reagan debt reference is, Obama's eight
years by far holds the record for the greatest public debt accumulation in US
history, and that was accomplished just through sheer spending
irresponsibility.

The US is heading toward trillion dollar deficits no matter. There's
absolutely nothing that can stop that, unless someone wants to dramatically
slash entitlements - which is never going to happen. You can't raise taxes on
the rich enough to find $1 trillion in new revenue. To plug the hole with tax
revenue, it'll be necessary to dramatically raise taxes on everyone in the top
50% income wise, matching what other advanced welfare states do in taxing the
middle class a lot more by necessity to pay for entitlements.

The annual tax cut cost is going to be about $150 billion per year, roughly
$1.5 trillion over the next ten years, assuming mediocre revenue gains from
it. The eight Obama years added about $9 trillion in new public debt, and the
US got absolutely nothing from that vast fiscal destruction (other than
further eroded infrastructure, a mostly horrible healthcare plan, a trillion
dollars in new student debt, zero gain in the median American net worth
figure, and the greatest wealth gains in US history by the rich).

You can't actually think $150 billion per year matters any longer. It's
dramatically beyond game over for the US fiscally. Nobody even dares to bring
up the idea of paying down the debt now. It's the Japan debt scenario full
steam ahead, $30 trillion in public debt by 2027 no matter what happens. That
means permanently low Fed rates, because the US will never be able to afford
the interest on $30+ trillion otherwise.

I'll take the 20% corporate income tax rate in exchange for the $150 billion
per year cost (plus the big jump in the standard deduction); the $150 billion
thrown onto the burning fiscal picture that started with the Bush years, got
dramatically worse with the Obama years, and is going to continue through the
Trump years, is simply meaningless at this point.

~~~
jrs95
Ryan actually just announced entitlement reform is something they're going to
attempt in 2018. It seems like it would be very difficult, but there is some
chance that those will have substantial long term cuts.

As for the Reagan reference in the parent comment, that's sort of a common
comparison to criticize Republican tax (and often defense) policy since the
80s. There is somewhat of a common trend of cutting taxes far more than
spending and increasing military expenditures simultaneously. Bush was a much
worse offender here though, with Iraq and Afghanistan.

------
Havelock
It is nice, could do with some better support for smaller screens. I enjoyed
that the authors names shifted position when updating the page. Nice touch.

------
Donald
Couldn't you determine my state income taxes from a state dropdown? Local
could still be an addition for more nuanced municipalities.

------
mlnhd
I think the Married Filing Joint standard deduction for 2018 would be $13,000
under the current Code. Your comparison shows it as $12,700.

------
bovermyer
This is interesting, but how accurate is it?

~~~
tvanantwerp
Not very.

------
DoodleBuggy
Interesting, but it really needs to include state taxes to be accurate or
relevant.

------
pazimzadeh
There should be a checkbox for whether you are a graduate student or not.

------
xyzzyz
It doesn't seem to consider state tax in the calculations.

~~~
ytNumbers
[https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes#tax-
calculators](https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes#tax-calculators)

------
moh853
This does not account for the massive increase in taxes that graduate students
would have in the house plan. In the house plan tuition waivers of graduate
students will become taxable and push them further down the poverty line.

------
pascalxus
i got different results between this calulator and the flu.io one. this one
seems to appear much more favorable.

------
EarthIsHome
Feature request: choose a tax year

------
kaosjester
This doesn't account for the whole picture. The tax benefit is dwarfed in
comparison to the losses in social security people at and below the poverty
line will suffer.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
I’m assuming you mean “social safety net”, not Social Security?

And are you just referring to the individual mandate change? Or are other big
parts of the safety net changing from this bill?

(And yes, I understand the long-term policy and political implications, but
I’m asking about specific immediate changes in this bill)

~~~
toomuchtodo
Republicans have stated they will be cutting Medicare and Social Security
benefits after the tax cuts have passed “as they’re no longer affordable.”

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/01/gop-
eyes-post-tax-cut-changes-to-welfare-medicare-and-social-security/)

~~~
Joeri
If the health care costs in the U.S. were the same as the next most expensive
OECD country, health care costs would be $1 trillion less. The trump tax cuts
amount to $150 billion a year, so just by bringing health care costs in line
with the second-most expensive country they could probably meet all of the
shortfall without anyone needing to lose anything. It's possible to make smart
cuts to medicare and medicaid spending without affecting quality of care or
coverage.

Now, knowing republicans that's not how it will pan out though. They aren't
known for making smart cuts, they typically reduce benefits/expenditure while
keeping profiteering in place.

------
rayj
Eliminating state and local taxes was a long time coming. Why should the no-
tax states subsidize the bloated bureaucracy of CA/NY? It would be quite
amazing if CA got rid of state income taxes though.

~~~
jdavis703
This tends to be a widely held misconception. It turns out that CA and NY pay
more in federal taxes than they receive back in federal funds. It turns out
that it's mostly the low tax states that take in more from the federal
government than they pay. Here's one chart:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/which-s...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/which-
states-are-givers-and-which-are-takers/361668/)

~~~
usaar333
Well, sure - but CA and NY also have very high income levels:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP_per...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP_per_capita)

We have a progressive tax system, so rich states should be paying more than
they receive in federal funds.

The more relevant question is how do the Atlantic's charts look once you
correct for income levels? Given that CA's returns are barely less than 1, I
suspect that CA is in a situation where the tax deduction is effectively
allowing the federal government to subsidize the state.

~~~
jdavis703
Sure, but we're supposed to be creating a tax cut, not a tax hike. If you want
to raise taxes to either reduce the deficit or create new government services
that's fine by me. But instead this tax cut will go to cutting the taxes of
the wealthy and increase the budget deficit. This will be paid for by states
like NY and CA and won't help the tax system become more progressive.

