February 12, 2025

Dear Member of Congress:

On behalf of the undersigned organizations collectively representing millions of working people and families all across the United States of America, we write to strongly oppose enacting any tax breaks for the wealthy, large corporations, and/or big businesses, including by extending or expanding the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. If made permanent or extended, the benefits would go overwhelmingly to big business owners and wealthy households while increasing the federal debt by $4.3 trillion over the next 10 years. At a time with expensive and growing costs for healthcare, housing, education, and so much more, giving more tax breaks to wealthy individuals and large corporations will do nothing to bring down costs for families or improve their economic mobility. Enacting these new tax cuts for the wealthy is so expensive that President Trump & Congressional Republicans are looking to cut Medicaid, SNAP, other health care programs, public education, and other vital services that will increase costs and leave peoples’ wallets and economic safety net worse off now and for the next generation. No matter where we come from, what we look like, or who we voted for, overwhelming majorities of people and working families across the country oppose tax breaks for the wealthy and big corporations at the expense of our wallets and our futures.

The 2017 Trump tax law has been a failure for the economy and none of the promised benefits have materialized for lower and middle income people. Trump Administration economic officials and Congressional Republicans claimed that “the average household would, conservatively, realize an increase in wage and salary income of $4,000” from the TCJA’s combination of a lower corporate tax rate and the ability to immediately write off investments. As if one outlandish unfounded promise to people wasn’t enough, the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers at the time of the bill’s passage went even further and predicted that average household income could rise as much as $9,000 per year as a result of the tax package. But those promised income improvements never materialized anywhere close to where President Trump and Congressional Republicans promised, and many middle income families saw their taxes increase. But the top 1% of wealthy individuals received on average a $61,000 tax cut and the top 0.1% each got an estimated $252,000. There is absolutely no reason to continue giving wealthy people special tax breaks while sticking families with the cost.

President Trump and Congressional Republicans are promising to go even further in giving away middle income families’ hard earned dollars to the wealthy and big corporations with proposals to lower the corporate rate even more to 15 percent while also attempting to extend or make the pass-through loophole permanent. This loophole, also known as Section 199A, has been widely mischaracterized by big businesses and their lobbyists as having benefitted “small businesses.” But any honest analysis of the beneficiaries from this legal loophole reveals that the income from pass-throughs is highly concentrated at the top. One study found that 75% of it went to big businesses, while households with over $1 million of income receive over half of the tax benefit. In fact, seven billionaires, including Michael Bloomberg and Richard Uihlein, were able to cut their collective tax bills by almost $200 million in a single year thanks to the pass-through loophole. There is absolutely no reason Congress should consider extending or expanding upon any provisions like 199A that would overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy while sticking lower and middle income people with the bill.

Decades of tax breaks and special loopholes for the wealthy and corporations have worsened income and wealth inequality to the worst levels in a generation, and continue to be the primary policies responsible for the ever increasing debt. After the enactment of the Trump Tax Scam, which lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%—corporations now pay on average a lower effective income-tax rate than the average American family for the first time in nearly a century. And despite lofty promises from then President Trump and Congressional Republicans, corporations used their windfall from middle class families to go on a massive stock- buyback spending spree, giving their executives huge bonuses while keeping worker wages flat. Corporate tax breaks have proven to be an expensive and inefficient giveaway that does not help families. According to analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), for every $100 Congress spends on corporate tax breaks, $40 goes to foreign investors, $17 goes to the top 1% of highest-income households, and only $10 trickles down to the bottom 80% of American households. Further analysis from CBO finds that corporate tax breaks fail to generate meaningful growth, creating just 20 cents of economic output for every one dollar spent. 

Congressional Republicans are once again planning to deficit finance tax breaks for the wealthy, or they will make lower and middle income people pay the cost. So far the only proposals being floated are those that would take money and health care away from millions of people and give it to the wealthy in the form of tax breaks that the rest of us don’t get. Despite decades of their failed economic approach, Congressional Republicans continue to double down on their failed policies in order to further enrich their donors and well-connected elites at the expense of families. 

The Trump Tax Scam and its new iteration rely on the economic argument that huge tax breaks for the rich and large corporations will trickle down to people or produce a boom in economic growth, despite that approach having unequivocally failed for decades and creating difficult economic circumstances for millions of people. Our organizations reiterate our strong opposition to any tax breaks for the wealthy, large corporations, and big businesses by extending or expanding upon the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. If you have any questions, please contact John Foti at jfoti@americansfortaxfairness.org. 

Sincerely,

Americans for Tax Fairness
Fair Share America
20/20 Vision
Accountable.US
Advancing CT Together
AFL-CIO
AFT
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)
American Friends Service Committee
Americans for Democratic Action (ADA)
Americans for Financial Reform
Anne Arundel County Food Bank, Inc.
Autistic People of Color Fund
Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network
Beyond Careers
Blue Future
Campaign for America’s Future
Care in Action
Caring Across Generations
CASH Campaign of Maryland
Catalyst Miami
Center for Common Ground
Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
Center for LGBTQ Economic Advancement & Research (CLEAR)
Citizen Action/Illinois
Coalition on Human Needs
Color of Change
Colorado Consumer Health Initiative
Colorado Fiscal Institute
Common Good Iowa
Communications Workers of America (CWA)
Community Change Action
Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd, U.S. Provinces
Connecticut Voices for Children
Consumer Action
Courage California
DemCast USA
Democracy Matters
Democrats Abroad
Demos Action
East Area Progressive Democrats (EAPD)
Empire State Voices
Fairness for Iowa
Family Values@Work Action
Fourth Branch Action
Freedom Writers Collaborative
Front Range Pediatric Therapies
GRACE – End Child Poverty California
Hand in Hand
Hawaii Children’s Action Network Speaks!
Health Care for America Now (HCAN)
Honest Arizona
Housing Action Illinois
Income Movement
Indivisible Georgia Coalition
Indivisible Hawaii Statewide Network
Indivisible Marin
Indivisible Sacramento
Indivisible SF
Institute for Policy Studies -Program on Inequality
Institute for Policy Studies, Global Economy Project
Institute for Policy Studies, Poverty Project
Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy
ISAIAH (MN)
Latino Farmers & Ranchers International, Inc.
Lawyers for Good Government
Louisiana Partnership for Children and Families
Maine Center for Economic Policy
Maine People’s Alliance
MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger
Meals4Families (NC)
MillerHR
MomsRising
NAACP
National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd
National Coalition for the Homeless
National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare
National Council of Jewish Women
National Domestic Workers Alliance
National Education Association (NEA)
National Employment Law Project
National Women’s Law Center
NC Budget & Tax Center
Network 49
NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice
Oregon Center for Public Policy
Oregonizers
Our Revolution
Oxfam America
Parent Voices, California
ParentsTogether Action
Patriotic Millionaires
People’s Action
People’s Action Institute
Popular Democracy
Protect Borrowers Action
Public Citizen
Rise Up WV
Responsible Wealth
San Diego for Every Child
Senior and Disability Action
Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
Sister District Sacramento
Sisters of the Presentation, Dubuque, IA
Small Business For America’s Future
Social Security Works
Social Work Grand Challenge on Reducing Extreme Economic Inequality
State Revenue Alliance
Stop Project 2025, Sacramento
Strong Economy For All Coalition
Student Borrower Protection Center
Take on Wall Street
Team for West Virginia Children
The Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis
The Workers Circle
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Hidalgo County Texas
United Auto Workers
United Church of Christ
United for a Fair Economy
United for Respect
Unrig Our Economy
Upper West Side Action Group:MoveOn/Indivisible/SwingLeft
Venice Resistance
Voices for Progress
Voices of Health Care Action
We Make Minnesota