GOP bombarded by furious taxpayers after promotion of Trump's tax cut hilariously backfires

[turbinetree]

Brad Reed
15 Apr 2019 at 11:13 ET

The Republican Party on Monday tried to celebrate Tax Day by touting the purported effectiveness of its signature tax cut — but they were quickly hit with blowback from angry taxpayers.

In a tweet posted early Monday morning, the GOP boasted that its tax cuts “have put money back into the pockets of hardworking Americans so that they can spend it on things that actually matter to them and their families.”

However, many angry Americans shot back at the GOP and said they’d been stunned to find that they actually owed the government money after the IRS put too much money in their paychecks as a way to juice the economy.

Additionally, many people pointed to polls showing that the majority of Americans don’t believe they got any kind of tax cut whatsoever.

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/04/gop-bombarded-furious-taxpayers-promotion-trumps-tax-cut-hilariously-backfires/


I cannot wait to go to a "town hall" and tell the republican asshole in my district about repealing his fucking tax cut and voting him out of office.................................

November 3, 2020 cannot get here fast enough.......................

[SWBTATTReg]

1. Just wait...these republican reps will start canceling all of their town halls, etc. because...

of the backlash from taxpayers on this...and I don't blame them. An irresponsible and irrational tax cut for the wrong people, not us.

[Wounded Bear]

75. A lot of them already did this...

[olegramps]

79. Another shocker is in the works, the proposed withholding form.

It is designed to collect all taxes and eliminate any refunds. It is so complicated that its roll out has been delayed probably to next year at best.

[Iliyah]

2. Good, but alas, GOPers just don't care.

[trc]

11. Yep

They were absolutely lied to by the rethug reps, but they hate "libtard" democrats more. Period. I can try to have a discussion with these folks but I can see them figuratively stick their fingers in their ears and hum "na na na can't hear you."

[scrutineer]

3. Hardly working not hardworking Americans

Should clarify: "While @TheDemocrats work 4 sensible gov, #GOPTaxCuts put $ into pockets of hardly working fund managers and billionaires so they can spend it on things they absolutely don't need."

[ooky]

4. Its stunning to me how many people don't know how to compare

how much total tax they paid this year compared to last year by simply comparing the "total tax" lines (2018 Form 1040 line 15 vs. 2017 Form 1040 line 63).

Of course, its equally stunning how many believe outright lies they are fed by Republicans and Trump.

[llmart]

17. I've noticed a lot of that here on DU.

People post about the refunds they are or are not getting and think that's the measure to look at. Once you compare the total tax paid between the two years you can also figure the percentage that tax is of your AGI and compare the percentages. But I guess that's too difficult for most people. They'd rather complain about how they got less of a refund.

I could easily complain from here to eternity that I had to pay $3300 to the IRS this year whereas last year I only had to pay $350 (true figures), but I would be leaving out the fact that I have retired and have absolutely NO withholding on my source(s) of income. So of course I'm going to have to pay something this year compared to last year when I was still working and had withholding taken from my paycheck.

I'm not saying I am enthralled with the tax cuts - I'm not, but why do DU'ers not want to learn something re: their taxes?

[pangaia]

23. Stunninmg, is itr not.

[Farmer-Rick]

24. Most of us who complain of our disappearing refunds

Explained that our finances didn't change at all from year to year. True we didn't post our total tax paid but some wanted to maintain a modicum of privacy.

[Betty88]

35. This

The big change for us was not income, its fixed no difference between this year and last. Except the limit on property tax and local tax deductions.

[watoos]

30. The fact that you have no withholding,

was your choice. I took out federal tax on my Social Security, on my pension, and on my investments. I made out on the difference between losing the exemption deductions and gaining on the standard deduction because it is just the wife and me filing.

[llmart]

48. I'm well aware that it was and is my choice.

Where in my post did you see me complaining about that? I was using it as an example of how that would not be a valid indication of the effect the tax bill had on my taxes.

[DownriverDem]

33. What about

the folks that lost their property taxes deduction and had to pay big time? Of course those hit the hardest are blue states. I abhor trump and the repubs.

[True Blue American]

39. I just heard they cut deductions for children.is that right?

I know the basic deduction doubled but I had a strange bad year.

[dsc]

49. Most people didn't voluntarily have such major changes

I had some changes and wound up owing money when I hadn't in the past. Given all my changes I have no clue if the Trump tax cuts helped or hurt. But I do know that many people did see huge increases in taxes (homeowners in the Northeast and West coast, truck drivers and others who deducted many business expenses, and others). Even without that, having the government miscalculate withholding to the extent that people owe massive amounts of money is problematic. In addition to having to write a large check the tax payer often has to pay a penalty for under withholding.

[radical noodle]

69. Our accountant kindly did the comparison for us

as part of his calculations.

[boston bean]

73. They hid the costs. People thought they were paying less. Not realizing in the end they owed it back

It was a scam.

[not fooled]

19. This calculator will do a side-by-side comparison

http://taxplancalculator.com/

[dixiegrrrrl]

83. That cculator does not seem to account for not taxable income

such as SS.

But otherwise is very educational.

[Salviati]

31. I'm not interested in doing the gop's work in explaining this to people who are angry about it

Let them be the ones sputtering out an explanation.

[lagomorph777]

43. +1. If the result is people angry at the GOP,

let the GOP try to put up complicated equations and explain the tax deception to their idiot base.

[ooky]

63. Sure. Then the GOP and Trump will simply lie to them that "the liberals" did it.

And they'll believe it and vote for the liars again.

[Mars and Minerva]

67. One of my clients explained to me that his higher tax bill was Obama's fault.

I kindly replied that whoever told him that was an idiot.

[ooky]

68. And I rest my case.

[larwdem]

64. I agree

why the hell help the repiglicans ?

[Recursion]

41. The past three years have convinced me most Americans have no idea how much money they make

I mean, I love that for once it works in our favor, but nearly everybody got bigger take-home pay after the tax cut. It's just nobody noticed.

[Cosmocat]

45. A good portion of it was an advance

they redid witholding to give people a little more in their paychecks and keep the economy going well going into the mid terms, as an advance on their returns.

BUT, there were people who itemized a lot who lost those itemizations that took a beating, and there were people in blue states that they hosed on Salt.

Either way, people are funny, everyone knows they did the whole thing UNFUNDED to give most of the benefits to the ultra rich and corporations, and are taking it out on this ...

[spooky3]

78. It's like borrowing against home equity.

The bill to repay the debt this tax law incurred will come due.

[NewJeffCT]

84. Income taxes paid did go down for me

but, as I explained in my post, I was hurt by the SALT limits - and, that was even with prepaying half of my 2018 property taxes at the end of 2017.

Next year, with a full year of property taxes for this current year, I'm going to be paying out a lot more because most of my property tax won't be able to be deducted.

[NewJeffCT]

82. That doesn't tell the entire story, though

I live in a blue state with high property taxes and was only able to deduct a portion of those taxes. Additionally, I was very lucky that my financial situation was good enough so I was able to prepay half of my 2018 property taxes in December of 2017 instead of January 2018 - so I was able to deduct more from my 2017 taxes and have a lower total property tax bill for 2018 because of it.

Next year, I'm going to get killed because I will have a full year of property taxes for 2019 and much of it won't be deductible.

Yes, the actual total income tax paid went down for me this past year. But, that was more than offset by the SALT limits, and will be way more than offset for this year when I file in 2020.

[ooky]

86. But in a large majority of cases it will.

I'm speaking about those who maintain a relatively steady income and dependent picture from year to year. Same job, close to the same income, expenses, live in the same home, same dependents. People who haven't made major changes from year to year.

Here's my heartburn with it all. With so much emphasis coming from the media about the refunds and the witholding, I think the real issue of the big Republican LIE gets diluted and more or less lost, while it should be center stage in neon lights. That lie is that Republicans campaigned on their "tax reform" as something that was going to change the lives of average Americans, that we would get back our money that "socialist liberal democrats had been stealing and giving to non-working lazy people". That "working Americans" would see improvement in their lives, be able to make it from payday to payday easier, perhaps even upgrade their cars, homes, etc., have more discretionary income. And nothing even remotely like that that happened. Instead, it was all about a harvest for their campaign financiers. Whether people got a refund or not, nobody's living standards got any better. They are still paying close to the same percentage of tax that they always were. It was just another big LIE, and instead of talking about the big lie the country is focused on piddling refunds that broke a little on one side or the other. Once again Republicans and Trump won't be held accountable for their lies.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

5. Dp not hold you breath that Republicans are going to hold Town Halls....

any time soon.

They are doing their damndest to avoid having to answer to angry constituents about Taxes, the Border, Trump violating the US Constitution, Health Care, and more. They will feign they have no time to see people other than the few who voted for them..

[Mr.Bill]

10. If Trump is still in office

there won't be any presidential debates, either. He would have nothing to gain from them.

[pangaia]

25. Now THAT is a good point.

[DownriverDem]

34. Then

The Dem candidate will have the time all to him/herself. It won't work for trump either.

[Doitnow]

37. Well, Dem candidates can run on substituting themselves for the non-present Rethugs and

explaining all this as some of them did in 2018. Rethugs have NOTHING to run on in addition to panning the "tax cut" they thought would go over well. (Honestly, how stupid can people be!)

[muntrv]

6. They won't hold town halls. They can't face the angry constituents.

[malaise]

7. But but but has Ann Coulter

said anything about this broken promise?

[TalenaGor]

8. last year I paid a total of 11,000 in taxes....

This year I had already paid in nearly 17,000 and I still owe 2300!!!!

[charliea]

13. Similar percentage increase for me

Last year my total due was ~5900 this year 10500. The increase was all in FED taxes as the cap on property and income taxes kicked in, and all I got was the 'standard deduction'.

Mailed them in Saturday.

[True Blue American]

40. Oh, Wow!

No drastic change in income?

A friend who has children got back much less this year,and I am hearing families on TV say the same.

[Freethinker65]

52. Yep. We paid thousands more because of mutual fund capital gains.

Of course, those gains were paid out prior to the year end stock market readjustment, so our AGI jumped a bracket. Ended up owing thousands to to the feds and state.

I believe those already in higher tax brackets, even with capital gains, saw their taxes reduced. It did not work that way for us, usually being in a low bracket.

[dhol82]

57. Yup, that's what got me this year

Got a major jump in my return from the funds.
That and the fact I couldn’t deduct all my real estate taxes really screwed me over big time.

[DeminPennswoods]

70. That got me as well

There was a story in the Pgh paper that when the market went down late last year, people cashed in their mutual funds leading to those firms having to sell highly appreciated stocks, thus generating a lot of capital gains. The stock sales affected all mutual fund holders, not just the ones who cashed out. Everyone else who didn't cash out got big capital gains on paper.

[Baitball Blogger]

9. What clods to force people to spend money upfront, thinking they were going to get refunds.

Middle class people do not have this luxury.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

28. Unless they are RepubliCONs ginning up bank profits (loan interest) for big donors. . . . nt

[keithbvadu2]

12. Democrats should hold town halls for GOPers who refuse to.

Democrats should hold town halls for GOPers who refuse to.

Advertise it for the GOP politician and if he/she does not want to attend, a democrat conducts it for them.

[Totally Tunsie]

58. The Dems could even borrow Clint Eastwood's empty chair.

Response from the chair would best anything donnie would have to say anyway.

[calimary]

74. Definitely! That's an outstanding idea.

I hope they do it. It’s almost handed to them on a silver plate.

[Chin music]

76. +1

Good idea. GREAT idea actually.

[machoneman]

14. This is great new for us Dems. Sadly, many of us were also hit, and badly.

Saw a blurb today on CNN on how red states have benefited at the expense of blue states where the SALT limits hurt NY, NJ and other high SALT taxed states. Most all red staters have SALT well below the $10,000 limit while many in the East have $17,000+ SALT taxes where now the $7,000 excess is fully taxed....AGAIN!

Gee, I wonder how that happened?

Odd too that not all NY, NJ, etc. taxpayers are Democrats. Would love to see live TV interviews with hopping mad NY/NJ Republiscums!

Oh, joy!

[DontBooVote]

15. Could you please post the link where Raw Story got their content from? RS crashes

my devices.

[Pluvious]

50. The only links are the many furious tweets by victims

I'm using iPad with Safari and click the "Reader View Available" icon left of the URL.

Cheers

[Indykatie]

54. I Avoid Raw Story Like the Plague Too. It Plays Havoc with My Computers.

DU members seem to post a lot of stories using RS as the source so others must not have this problem.

[smirkymonkey]

16. K&R

[Thunderbeast]

18. My Federal tax bill increased by four percent.

I did not itemize...the 24k standard deduction was higher than my reduced deductions due to the SALT cap. The reduced tax RATE did not offset my loss of personal exemptions.

[Mr. Evil]

20. It really won't matter much. Even if they have to fork over an extra $3000 or $4000 a year.

All Trump has to do is point to another person of color and they'll all return to their mantra, "Lock Her Up! Lock Her Up! These dumbfucks are the epitome of the walking dead. Pavlov's Trumpers.

[Pluvious]

51. All that matters is there be Libural Tears (nt)

[Chin music]

77. Real Americans there. Wanting other Americans to hurt.

When did hurting your neighbors become patriotic? Liberals have saved this country many times over after the gop have driven the bus into the ditch. 2008 comes to mind.

[Pluvious]

81. Look no further than Fox and Hate Radio (nt)

[iluvtennis]

21. Nerd Wallet estimated Over 8 million ppl will owe this year

https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/2019-tax-report-part-2/

Over 1/3 of taxpayers who got a refund for tax year 2017 will owe for tax year 2018

[pangaia]

22. Sounds to me like a lot of those dumbells also don;t know the relationship

between withholding taxes and owing or getting a refund...




Shhh.. don't tell them....

[Dave Starsky]

53. I'm not sure how they fell for the withholding scam twice.

Dubya did this, too: Decrease withholding while touting your amazing "tax break" you just gave to the masses. Then leave town and go fishin' next April 15th when the rubes find out that they not only owe all that money back, but they owe even more!

I knew it was an obvious scam then, and I knew it was an obvious scam now. I adjusted my withholding both times. I still got fucked this year, but nowhere near as bad as I would have if I'd taken His Majesty The Fathead at his word.

There's an old saying we have in Texas. They might have it in Tennessee, too, but we have it in Texas: Fool me once, shame on... you; fool me twice, shame on... shame on... Fool me, can't get fooled again!

[Eliot Rosewater]

26. GOP voters knew rump might destroy the human race but a tax cut is all they cared about

[TeamPooka]

27. There will not be any GOP town halls this year, or next.

[IronLionZion]

29. Tax cuts don't juice the economy and it's been proven many times

2018 was the first year of Trump's tax cuts and we've seen the results. It benefited mostly wealthy folks, who decided to save it instead of creating jobs. Sure some folks got higher paychecks, but didn't spend more to juice the economy. Many folks got lower paychecks or saw bills increase in other areas and ended up with less income.

Most of the growth came in the years before, with Obama's economic policies.

[Blue_true]

61. Actually, properly targeted tax cuts have been shown to help the economy.

A properly targeted tax cut go to people that are most likely to spend all or a good portion of the tax cut on items like furniture for a home or patio, car repairs, new tires, ect.

When tax cuts go to people that already have more money than they can ever spend, the extra money goes to something other that direct spending into the economy.

[IronLionZion]

65. As liberals, we believe consumer demand drives our economy

so anything that provides more money into the hands of lower income people will help our economy. Many of those folks don't benefit from tax cuts, but do benefit from higher minimum wage and education/social programs.

I get what you're saying but don't trust Republicans to ever pass properly targeted tax cuts. They'll always pass something that lets them claim everyone benefits but it mostly benefits the wealthy and corporations.

[Blue_true]

66. If the Supreme Court does not stop Trump from using Executive Orders to bypass laws

and the Constitution, then a gigantic door gets opened up for a future democratic President. That President could issue an Executive Order, say, that gives a $1,000 per year tax cut to anyone making less that $75,000 per year, a $700 per year cut to people making $76,000-$200,000 , while raising taxes on anyone making more that $1 million per year with the tax rate applied to all types of income and progressively increasing with wealth up to 45%. I believe the changes would be enormously beneficial for the country, and since the Supreme Court and republicans had rolled over for Trump, they could not stop the EO from going into effect.

[ProfessorGAC]

72. In Other Words...

...a solid progressive tax plan, where ultra high income earners don't see a proportionally greater reduction.
Problem is, the supply siders don't promote that idea so we keep seeing the same old results.

[Blue_true]

85. Yep, unfortunately. Progressives need to stop fighting eachother and end that. nt

[saidsimplesimon]

32. Miles to go and lots

of work organizing needed before we are ready to crush the cretins in 2020. Most important, imo, early efforts to organize and GOTV strategies in place ready to be implemented.

"November 3, 2020 cannot get here fast enough."

[Bradical79]

36. I don't know anyone who did more than just break even

I lost $700 on the return, but I'm not sure off hand how much more I had in my check off hand.

[Caliman73]

38. Perhaps I am too cynical at this point, but I think these "outraged" taxpayers...

will come back home to the Republican party on November 3, 2020. They were the idiots that believed that supposed billionaire Donald Trump, born into money and bailed out time after time throughout his life, was "a man of the people" and that he was looking out for the average American.

[athenasatanjesus]

42. Microsoft news claims most of us got tax cuts and didn't even notice it. nt

[c-rational]

44. Most of the people I know and speak with are either not getting a refund or owe more this

April 15. Let's not go to to the total tax paid argument, as they did not notice any significant amount of income over the last year. My accountant says she spend half her days explaining to irate customers about the new tax law. I asked a good friend why this was not getting more traction on the news, then realized it is corporate media, so they will not say a thing. People are pissed, especially in areas with high State and Local taxes that are capped. We should go back to the days when all tax returns were made public. A lot more transparency and less bs-ing. When people saw how little or no Federal Tax either large corporations or really wealthy people paid we would have a good debate.

[ThoughtCriminal]

46. Same GOP Taxpayers who believed that their taxes went up

during the Obama Administration. Most got a tax cut, but the GOP had them convinced that their taxes went up.

[ALBliberal]

47. As a self employed CPA.... I just finished my last extension

The only people with good news this year are the very wealthy.

[Honeycombe8]

55. It SHOULD be affecting my red state of Louisiana, but I'm not seeing it on FB...

the Senators have FB pages, but I'm not seeing it there. Could be a lot of who is affected don't do FB.

[localroger]

60. This morning on WWL, Tommy Tucker had "talked to a CPA."

This source had told Tommy that most of his customers had seen their taxes go down and hadn't lost their refunds. Nobody called in (I certainly wasn't going to) to advise him that the set of people who can afford the services of a CPA kind of self-selects for the northern end of the income distribution.

[Honeycombe8]

62. Well, of course that would be obvious. To US! OTOH...

upper middle class, or middle class, in the high property tax states like NY, probably had net tax increases and could use CPAs. One of the things lost was deducting property taxes more than $10k,which would affect middle class and upper middle class in high property tax states. Heck, I was just a workin' gal (I'm retired), and my property tax on my house in Dallas had hit $8k by the time I moved.

So I don't know. I can't tell because my income and situation was different this year. I think I would have gotten a small decrease, though. I might go back & take a stab at looking at how much it would be, if I got the same income as last year.

[Honeycombe8]

56. I don't think Raw Story is a legit news source.

It usually repeats a news story from a news source, but this one looks to be an original. So it may not be true, but may be. While there are some who are complaining to the GOP, not sure how many. I didn't see any on my senators' FB pages.

I'd prefer a better source.

[Firestorm49]

59. And the mind numbing reality is......

that they really believe it, again proving that the Republican Party Is oblivious as to what the hard working Democrat and Republican has to do just to get bye. Totally in the blind.

[Tucker08087]

71. I hate to say this, because I live in deep red South Jersey....

It has been my home for most of my life. (Left for university studies and then Ohio and Tennessee, of all places) and I truly love my neighbors. I am one of the only truly educated people here, and they respect that, but also tease me, and I’ve taught almost all of their children with the same expectations and love that I have for my own. We were all children ourselves together. So we try to stay away from politics, but have had the very heated “sensible gun laws” arguments where they said I was wrong but they said they couldn’t win against “my brain.” I told them it was my heart, because I would stand between a bullet and their children and they knew it. They do know it. It shut them up.
So now the taxes. They were thrilled with their extra $3 a week. And son of a bitch if they aren’t still thrilled. “Well, I got it throughout the year, and I really appreciated that.” Me: “You appreciated that loaf of bread each week? Because I volunteer at the food bank, and they give that away for free.” Them: “Then we would be TAKERS.” (We are, seriously, called The Welfare Capital of the County by the Board of Social Services. 90% of the town would be considered “takers.”) So I asked them to do the math: that $12 multiplied by 12 months. Did they actually get back more? Some really don’t get it or can’t do the math. But most DON’T CARE! This man, who made them takers bc he destroyed Atlantic City and our economy is STILL conning them. I feel sorry for them, because they really are nice people who will give you the shirts off their backs, but Trump is their god, and they worship at his alter of lies. They will never see him in any other way.

[Left-face]

80. Good luck with the IRS even noticing

Part of the problem is that unless you're really poor and a minority the IRS has likely forgotten you even exist anymore. Their budget has been slashed to the bare bones over the years the overwhelming percentage of voters are not getting refunds and never were. To most voters this is a non-issue and they can easily cheat on their taxes and pay little to nothing because there's no enforcement dollars left or very little. They're certainly not going after the super rich. Their budget is so tight they can only go after the low hanging fruit.