Report finds GOP tax plan benefits top 1 percent

WASHINGTON - The new GOP tax plan delivers a big tax cut to the wealthiest Americans while some in lower tax brackets would end up paying more, according to an analysis Friday from prominent nonpartisan researchers.

The plan being touted by President Donald Trump as the biggest tax cut ever delivers 50 percent of its total tax benefit to taxpayers in the top 1 percent, those with incomes above $730,000 a year, according to the Tax Policy Center of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution. For those wealthy taxpayers, their after-tax incomes would increase 8.5 percent next year.

For other taxpayers, though, the benefits are far more modest or nonexistent, the report finds. Taxpayers in the bottom 95 percent would see tax cuts averaging 1.2 percent of after-tax income or less next year.

And about 12 percent of taxpayers would face a tax increase next year, of $1,800 on average. That includes more than a third of taxpayers making between about $150,000 and $300,000, mostly because of the elimination of many itemized deductions.

By 2027, taxes would increase for about a quarter of Americans, including nearly 30 percent of those earning about $50,000 to $150,000 a year, according to the study.

“The number of taxpayers with a tax increase rises over time,” it said. That’s because the Republican plan would replace personal exemptions, which are tied to inflation.

The findings were certain to fuel the Democrats’ main attack line against the GOP plan: That it’s a giveaway to the rich at the expense of the middle class. Republicans immediately disputed the analysis.

“This so-called study is misleading, unfounded and biased,” said House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas. “TPC makes a variety of overreaching and unrealistic assumptions about policy decisions members of Congress still have to make as we draft progrowth tax legislation. Republicans are unified in delivering tax reform that will lower taxes on middle-class Americans, ensure they are able to keep more of their hardearned money, and grow our economy.”