Bruce Jenket: Tax rate decrease still amounts to tax increase for wealthy

To The Daily Sun,

Eric Herr did respond to my previous letter by email claiming we were both correct. I disagreed. If some group pays more in income taxes year after year, it’s a tax increase. To deny that is both untrue and unethical. If Eric wants to argue the wealthy got a “tax rate” cut, I will concede that fact. The Tax Cuts & Jobs Act lowered the highest earners' tax rate from 39.6% to 37%. However, between 2017 and 2022, those making over $500,000 per year saw their “taxable income” increase from $2.0 trillion to $3.5 trillion. They did pay 56.5% more ($341B) in taxes, which is a tax increase.

The claim the rich got a “tax cut” is false. The only group that received a tax cut was those making under $100,000 per year. See my previous letter: tinyurl.com/3fxpv5xe. That letter called out Jeanne Shaheen, Maggie Hassan, Chris Pappas and Maggie Goodlander for supporting that lie. I emailed all four multiple times and none responded.

I suspect if they had responded it would have been similar to Eric’s response where he convoluted tax “rate cuts” with tax “dollar cuts.” They are not the same. If any of our federal representatives really wanted to tax the rich more why didn’t any one of them propose returning the highest “tax rate” back to 39.6% during the Big Beautiful Bill debates? President Donald Trump said he would approve that increase.

In my opinion, Democrats can’t acknowledge that the TC&JA was a tax cut for those making under $100,000 per year and a tax increase for those making over $100,000 per year because that would be a win for President Trump. The same is true for Trump’s BBB which will further reduce income taxes on those making under $100,000 per year. Again, shame on Hassan, Shaheen, Pappas, Goodlander and Eric Herr.

Bruce Jenket

Moultonborough