Trump’s tax reform happened, now what?
At the end of 2017, the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) brought the most sweeping overhaul of the US tax code in decades. A statutory corporate rate cut, individual income tax rate reductions, expansion of the Child Tax Credit, the doubling of the standard deduction, and the implementation of a diverse set of international taxation laws — such as BEAT, FDII and GILT — are notable changes among a variety of additional provisions. Many provisions are set to expire in 2026, but the law made some reforms permanent, such as the corporate rate cut. Upon the passage of the TCJA, projected effects and opinions were diverse and relatively uncertain, even among leading thinkers in the field. Which households would benefit and which would lose — and by how much? Would the corporate rate cut spur the growth that it promised? What about inequality? Revenue effects? How do all of these complex provisions interact, and can we disentangle these effects in both the short and long term?
Today marks more than a year and half since the TCJA’s enactment in January of 2018. In this tax symposium, we aim to ask leading academics, scholars and policy analysts from across the ideological and political spectrum these very questions. Here, we will let these experts tackle these significant questions, explaining the effects of the TCJA as they see them. There may be consensus on the effects of some provisions, but not others. Ultimately, we are encouraging our bloggers to share their knowledge, interpretation of the data and diversity of opinions in order to answer the central question that we’ve all been asking ourselves: “So what’s the deal with that tax law after all?”
