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GOP Tax Provision In CARES Act Benefits – Wait For It – Millionaires And Billionaires

By Jessica Corbett/Common Dreams

Democratic lawmakers and progressive critics expressed outrage Tuesday after a nonpartisan congressional body found that nearly 82% of benefits from a Republican tax provision in the most recent coronavirus relief package will go to the nation’s millionaires and billionaires and cost taxpayers an estimated $90 billion this year alone.
The finding came in a new Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) analysis released by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) detailing the expected impact of the GOP provision, which was part of the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act signed into law by President Donald Trump last month.


“This analysis shows that while Democrats fought for unemployment insurance and small business relief, a top priority of President Trump and his allies in Congress was another massive tax cut for the wealthy,” Whitehouse said in a statement. “Congress should repeal this rotten, un-American giveaway and use the revenue to help workers battling through this crisis.”
Noting the current health and financial conditions created by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Whitehouse added that “it’s a scandal for Republicans to loot American taxpayers in the midst of an economic and human tragedy.”


The tax provision in question “temporarily suspends a limitation on how much owners of businesses formed as ‘pass-through’ entities can deduct against their nonbusiness income, such as capital gains, to reduce their tax liability,” the Washington Post reports. “The limitation was created as part of the 2017 Republican tax law to offset other tax cuts to firms in that legislation.”
Less than 3% of people set to benefit from the suspension earn under $100,000 per year, according to the JCT. The controversial provision is part of a set of tax changes in the coronavirus package that is expected to add about $170 billion to the national deficit over the next decade.
As the Post reports, the new JCT analysis also “included the impact of another tax change in the coronavirus relief legislation that allows firms to write off 100% rather than 80% of their losses, reversing another change in the 2017 tax law.”
The JCT analysis came after Whitehouse and Doggett sent a letter to Trump administration officials requesting information that could help explain the origins of the GOP provisions to the relief package. It also followed reporting that Trump, his son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, and real estate investors in the president’s “inner circle” could benefit from the legislation’s tax giveaways.
Doggett tried to put the impact of the tax changes into context Tuesday by pointing out that “for those earning $1 million annually, a tax break buried in the recent coronavirus relief legislation is so generous that its total cost is more than total new funding for all hospitals in America and more than the total provided to all state and local governments.
“Someone wrongly seized on this health emergency to reward ultrarich beneficiaries, likely including the Trump family, with a tax loophole not available to middle class families. This net operating loss loophole is a loser that should be repealed.”
The analysis requested by Whitehouse and Doggett also riled other Democrats in Congress, including Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.) and Rep. Barbara Lee (Calif.).


The JCT analysis was released as the fourth phase of coronavirus relief legislation remained stalled in Congress. Critics of the federal response to the pandemic – which includes “paltry” $1,200 checks to Americans that banks can reportedly seize to pay down outstanding loans and fees – have urged the public to learn from the crisis and push for a major shift in government going forward.
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Previously in tax scammage:
* McDonald’s Breaks Promise To Raise Wages.
* Last Year, Amazon Paid No Federal Income Taxes. Now, It’s Trying To Kill A Local Tax That Aims To Help the Homeless.
* Trump Vowed To Punish Companies That Moved Jobs Overseas. Is Congress Rewarding Them?
* After Long Career Bailing Out Big Banks, Obama Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner Now Runs Predatory Firm That Exploits The Poor For Profit.
* Jeff Bezos Just Became The Richest Person Ever. Amazon Workers Just Marked #PrimeDay With Strikes Against Low Pay And Brutal Conditions.
* A Sweet New Century For America’s Most Privileged.
* With Nation Transfixed By Kavanaugh Monstrosity, House GOP Votes To Give Rich Another $3 Trillion In Tax Cuts.
* Deepwater Horizon Settlement Comes With $5.35 Billion Tax Windfall.
* Offshoring By 29 Companies Costs Illinois $1.2 Billion Annually.
* Government Agencies Allow Corporations To Write Off Billions In Federal Settlements.
* The Gang Of 62 Vs. The World.
* How The Maker Of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing.
* $1.4 Trillion: Oxfam Exposes The Great Offshore Tax Scam Of U.S. Companies.
* How Barclay’s Turned A $10 Billion Profit Into A Tax Loss.
* Wall Street Stock Loans Drain $1 Billion A Year From German Taxpayers.
* German Finance Minister Cries Foul Over Tax Avoidance Deals.
* Prosecutor Targets Commerzbank For Deals That Dodge German Taxes.
* A Schlupfloch Here, A Schlupfloch There. Now It’s Real Money.
* How Milwaukee Landlords Avoid Taxes.
* Study: 32 Illinois Fortune 500 Companies Holding At Least $147 Billion Offshore.
* Watch Out For The Coming Tax Break Trickery.
* When A ‘Tax Bonanza’ Is Actually A Huge Corporate Tax Break.
* The Hypocrisy Of Corporate Welfare: It’s Bigger Than Trump.
* Oxfam Names World’s Worst Tax Havens Fueling ‘Global Race To Bottom.’
* Offshore Tax Havens Cost Average Illinois Small Business $5,789 A Year.
* State Tax Incentives To Corporations Don’t Work.
* GOP Tax Plan Would Give 15 Of America’s Largest Corporations A $236 Billion Tax Cut.
* Triumph Of The Oligarchs.
* Amazon Short-List Proves Something “Deeply Wrong” With America’s Race-To-The-Bottom Economy.
* Apple’s $38 Billion Tax Payment Less Than Half Of $79 Billion They Owe.
* U.S. Surpasses Cayman Islands To Become Second-Largest Tax Haven On Earth.
* Less Than Year After GOP Tax Scam, Six Biggest Banks Already Raked In $9 Billion In Extra Profits.
* After Budget Cuts, The IRS’s Work Against Tax Cheats Is Facing “Collapse.”
* $6.5 Billion: A Low-Ball Estimate Of The Walton Family’s Haul After 16 Years Of Bush, Obama And Trump Tax Giveaways.
* Illinois Could Recover $1.3 Billion Lost To Corporate Tax Loopholes.
* Whatever You Paid To Watch Netflix Last Month Was More Than It Paid In Income Taxes All Last Year: $0.
* Number Of U.S. Corporations Paying ‘Not A Dime’ In Federal Taxes Doubled In 2018.
* It’s Getting Worse: The IRS Now Audits Poor Americans At About The Same Rate As The Top 1%.
* IRS: Sorry, But It’s Just Easier And Cheaper To Audit The Poor.
* Corporate America’s Tax Breaks Have Left Society More Vulnerable To Pandemic.
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Previously in The Paradise Papers:
* ‘Paradise Papers’ Reveal Tax Avoidance, Shady Dealings Of World’s Rich And Powerful.
* Just How Much Money Is Held Offshore? Hint: A SHIT-TON.
* Development Dreams Lost In The Offshore World.
* Keeping Offshore ‘Hush Hush,’ But Why?
* Tax Havens Are Alive With The Sound Of Music.
* Today In Tax Avoidance Of The Ultra-Wealthy.
* Go To Town With This Offshore Leaks Database.
* The Paradise Papers: The View From Africa And Asia.
* The Paradise Papers: The End Of Elusion For PokerStars.
* The Paradise Papers: An Odd Call From The Bermuda Government.
* The Paradise Papers: Nevis Is An Offshore Haven Of Opportunity
* The Paradise Papers: The Long Twilight Struggle Against Offshore Secrecy.
* The Paradise Papers: A Fair Tax System Will Be Lost Without Public Pressure.
* Item: Today In The Paradise Papers: Through Death Threats And Scare Tactics, Honduran Reporter ‘Perseveres.’
* The Paradise Papers: Journalists Flee Venezuela To Publish Investigation.
* Last Stop: Chicago.
* The Paradise Papers: ‘Africa’s Satellite’ Avoided Millions Using A Very African Tax Scheme.
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Previously in The Panama Papers:
* The Panama Papers: Remarkable Global Media Collaboration Cracks Walls Of Offshore Tax Haven Secrecy.
* The Panama Papers: Prosecutors Open Probes.
* The [Monday] Papers.
* Adventures In Tax Avoidance.
* Mossack Fonseca’s Oligarchs, Dictators And Corrupt White-Collar Businessmen.
* Jonathan Pie, TV Reporter! They’re All In It Together.
* Meet The Panama Papers Editor Who Handled 376 Reporters In 80 Countries.
* The Laundromat.
‘A widow (Meryl Streep) investigates an insurance fraud, chasing leads to a pair of Panama City law partners (Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas) exploiting the world’s financial system. Steven Soderbergh directs.’
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Previously in carried interest, aka The Billionaire’s Loophole:
* Patriotic Millionaires Vs. Carried Interest.
* The Somewhat Surreal Politics Of A Private Equity Tax Loophole Costing Us Billions (That Obama Refused To Close Despite Pledging To Do So).
* Fact-Checking Trump & Clinton On The Billionaire’s Tax Break.
* Despite Trump Campaign Promise, Billionaires’ Tax Loophole Survives Again.
* Carried Interest Reform Is a Sham.
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Posted on April 15, 2020