> People making more than $200,000 per year will pay more taxes. How is it not a tax increase on the rich?
I'm not sure of that, though, because that only seems true if you're filing single. MFJ at the same income level puts you in a lower bracket than today. I know there are more single filers than married, and that married filers pay close to 3/4 of all income taxes, but I'm unsure if that results in an overall increase.
Besides, this whole tax plan seems to lighten the tax burden on wealth. The estate tax exemption gets larger (and eventually eliminated in the house plan), and the small business tax rate drops to 25% (S-Corps, LLC, Partnerships, Sole Proprietors) - that's almost entirely going to benefit entities used to manage passive income/wealth like PE, hedge funds, etc. The house plan is a little better here since it reduces taxes on small businesses who don't make enough to benefit from the senate version.
Put another way, if this were really a tax increase on the rich, why are we projecting that the deficit (and national debt) will increase as a result? With income distribution the way it is right now, the only way you arrive at the deficit number is to tax the rich less, not more. The issue here is that everyone is getting a tax cut, and that seems unwise to me without some adjustment to spending.
