Expert warn that more than eight million low-income and single-parent families will face sharp tax increases under Donald Trump, exacerbating income inequality.
Under Donald Trump’s proposed tax plan, the most wealthy Americans will receive an average annual tax cut of $215,000.
Minority families are set to suffer disproportionately from the tax increases, according to Batchelder. With 32% of African American families facing a tax increase compared with 19% of whites, this is mostly due to African American families being more likely to share the burden of childcare within the family and hence not benefit as much from Trump childcare credits. Batchelder said the effective tax increase for many millions of families would run into the thousands.
While the poor will face tax increases, the Tax Policy Center research said the rich would received big tax cuts that get even bigger as you work up the income scale. The top 20% of earners would receive an average annual tax cut of $16,660 compared with an overall average cut of $2,940.
The richest 1% will collect 47% of all the tax cuts – an average saving of $214,000.
The 0.1% – the 117,000 households with incomes of more than $3.7m – would receive an average 2017 tax cut of $1.3m, a nearly 19% drop in tax they were due to pay in 2016. The tax savings of the super-rich will increase further in future, with the 0.1%’s estimated 2025 tax bill to fall by $1.5m.
It is a stark contrast to Hillary Clinton’s tax plan, which would have seen taxes rises for the super-wealthy. Under her plan, the top 1% would pay an extra $163,000 a year more on average, and would have made up 93% of all new tax revenue by 2025.
“Listening to Trump’s rhetoric, most Americans probably don’t realise at all the impact of Trump’s tax plan,” Matt Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) said. “Any way you slice it, the very best-off Americans will be the biggest beneficiaries.
“If it looks bad now for middle-income families, those who turned out to vote for him, it’s only likely to get worse [with Trump as president]. It is very likely that they will end up poorer still. The most likely victims are middle- and low-income families.”
Gardner said that under Trump, America will become even more divided between the rich and poor. “America is already very unequal, and his proposals would make income inequality a lot worse,” Gardner said. “This is obviously quite worrisome. If he rode to victory on a middle-income wave of support, those middle Americans will be very disappointed.”
The inequality problem will be exacerbated by Trump’s plan to scrap inheritance tax – which he refers to as “the death tax”. The 40% inheritance tax is currently only charged on personal estate worth more than $5.45m and joint estates of $10.9m – sums so large that it only affects less than two in 1,000 Americans.
Trump has proposed repealing the tax entirely. While Clinton, pushed by Bernie Sanders’ strong stance on the issue, had suggested lowering the threshold to $3.5m and increasing the rate to 65% for the super-wealthy.
“It’s hard to think of a tax change that will have a more detrimental effect on inequality,” Garnder said. “There is no question that this will lead to a perpetual income elite – hardly the thing that Trump voters would have wanted. This will lead to a new era of dynastic wealth.”
• This article was amended on 24 November 2016. An earlier version referred to “tax breaks” where “tax brackets” was meant.
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