Giant bank thanks Don for $3.7 bil

A double-digit tax cut turned into a 10-figure profit boost for America’s largest bank.

JPMorgan Chase told shareholders Thursday that President Trump’s corporate tax cuts added $3.7 billion to the company’s profits in 2018.

CEO Jamie Dimon praised the government’s $1.5 trillion tax reduction, which Trump signed into law in late 2017, and said the measures allowed U.S. companies to keep up with international competition.

The corporate tax rate was slashed to 21% last year, down from 35%.

“Over the last 20 years, as the world reduced its tax rates, America did not,” Dimon said in a highly-anticipated annual letter.

“Our previous tax code was increasingly uncompetitive, overly complex, and loaded with special interest provisions that created winners and losers,” he said. “The new tax code establishes a business tax rate that will make the United States competitive around the world and frees U.S. companies to bring back profits earned overseas.”

The bank earned $32.5 billion in profits last year from $111.5 billion in revenue, according to the annual report.

The government’s tax package, officially known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, also simplified the individual tax brackets and temporarily cut the rates for most individual taxpayers. Those reductions are set to expire in 2025, unlike the corporate tax cuts, which are permanent.

The changes have been praised by numerous corporate executives for allowing them to create more jobs and increase wages. But critics say the law largely benefits large corporations over middleclass families.

Dimon said his company’s $3.7-billion profit boost will likely shrink in the coming years.