By FATIMA HUSSEIN, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — At the very top of Republicans’ 100-day agenda with President-elect Donald Trump in the White House and GOP lawmakers in a majority is the plan to renew some $4 trillion in expiring tax cuts.
On Friday, the U.S. Treasury released a new analysis of the various ways that extending the expiring individual and estate tax provisions of Trump’s 2017 tax overhaul — known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act — could cost the government, and who would directly benefit the most from the legislation’s permanent extension.
For instance, the Treasury’s Office of Tax Analysis estimates that the top 0.1% of earners would get a tax cut of $314,000 under a full extension of the individual and estate tax provisions, with the total cost of those tax cuts amounting to $4.2 trillion between 2026 and 2035.
If the tax cuts were only extended for families making $400,000 or less a year — a promise President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris made on the 2024 campaign trail — that would reduce the cost of extending expiring TCJA provisions to $1.8 trillion, or less than half the cost of extending all the individual and estate tax cuts.
A Treasury official said the full analysis is meant to give Congress options for the difficult choices ahead — namely how to pay for the tax cuts as the federal debt sits at over $36 trillion.
The TCJA, the biggest tax change in a generation, is the signature domestic achievement of Trump’s first term and an issue that may define his return to the White House.
