U.S. Billionaires Are Worth $3.6B More Since Trump Tax Law GOP Wants to Extend
This Tax Day, as last-minute filers send their returns to an Internal Revenue Services (IRS) facing the loss of half its workforce–slowing refunds, impairing customer service and enabling tax evasion by the top 1%–the wealthiest Americans are just getting richer. In the little over seven years since the Trump-GOP tax law went into effect, the collective fortune of America’s billionaires had as of last month grown by $3.6 trillion, or more than doubled to $6.5 trillion, according to the latest in a series of reports on billionaire wealth released today by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF).
Source: Americans for Tax Fairness
The report also finds that million-dollar earners, the highest-income residents in the nation, have grown their annual earnings by 63%, from $1.7 trillion to $2.7 trillion, since the enactment of the Trump-GOP tax law. Meanwhile, tens of millions of Americans who rely on Medicaid and food assistance are threatened with big cuts in those services to help pay for even more tax cuts for the rich.
“This Tax Day, Trump and Musk are doing everything in their power to make our tax system worse for average people while giving tax cuts to billionaires like themselves. Their all-out attacks on the IRS will result in delayed refunds, denied taxpayer service, and a free pass for wealthy tax evaders,” said David Kass, ATF’s executive director. “The billionaire-backed GOP is determined to slash vital public services like Medicaid and food assistance to fund trillions in tax cuts for economic elites. The astronomical growth in billionaire wealth and million-dollar incomes since the 2017 Trump-GOP tax law reveals its true intent: make millions of Americans suffer so a handful of wealthy elites can further enrich themselves. We will fight Republican efforts to cut health care and food assistance for workers and families to pay for tax cuts for billionaires.”
The Trump tax law this year will give an estimated average tax cut of over $60,000 to the highest-income 1% of households, those with income well over $800,000. Meanwhile the bottom 60% of American families, those with income of less than $92,000, would get less than $2 a day from an extension.
To hide its true cost, the Trump law made most of its provisions temporary, with a scheduled expiration date at the end of 2025. President Trump, the Republican Congress, and their wealthy backers are determined to make those parts of the law permanent, no matter what it costs in terms of reduced services or higher debt.
In the first year of such an extension, the 1% highest-income households would get on average almost $81,000 in tax cuts; the middle class would again receive less than $3 a day; and the poorest 40% would once again get even less. (This estimate includes Trump’s proposal not to extend the cap on the deduction of state and local taxes.)
To help pay for this top-heavy tax cut–which will cost $5.5 trillion over 10 years in lost tax revenue–Congressional Republicans are planning to cut public services like healthcare, nutritional assistance and education aid by trillions of dollars.
The GOP-controlled House of Representatives has already passed a budget that would cut $2 trillion in services, including $880 billion from Medicaid, endangering the healthcare of one in four Americans,or some 80 million people. The budget also calls for $230 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which helps families afford groceries at a time of high food prices. Nearly 43 million Americans rely on SNAP to stave off hunger.
At least two national studies show that proposed Republican fiscal policies would actually create higher costs for all but the highest-income Americans, who would instead reap huge savings. The Yale Budget Lab found that if enacted the tax-and-service cuts in the House budget would cost the average family in the lowest-income 40% of households over $750 next year. The lowest-income fifth would be hurt the most, facing over a thousand dollars of higher costs. Meanwhile the top 0.1%–folks with income over $3.3 million–would save on average $180,000.
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy looked at a different collection of Republican policy proposals and found the same kind of result. If one version of the Trump economic agenda were enacted–including extension of the expiring tax cuts; higher tariffs; the exemption of certain types of income from tax; an even lower corporate tax rate; and the repeal of energy tax credits–in 2026 95% of American families would face higher costs, while the top 5% would save money, the top 1% over $36,000.