Tax changes / proposals - discussion

Some maps

Vote by county in 2024

Per capita income by county

This only shows that there’s a correlation between areas with a Democratic majority and areas with higher median incomes.

It does not show how the wealthy voters vote. Non-wealthy Democrats in a more densely populated area could outnumber Republicans even if all of the “wealthy” voters voted Republican.

Analysis of proposed tax bill as of 5/21/25:

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Great article, thanks. Things are getting closer

https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/05/20/congress/blue-state-republicans-gop-leaders-land-tentative-deal-for-40-000-salt-deduction-00361495

No Tax on tips included in that proposal, looks promising :slight_smile:

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My :heart: on your post is for the hilarious The Bee article, not the fact that no tax on tips is included. It’s nuts. I’ve always hated the idea of tipping, now I just might stop completely.

Or maybe I won’t, since most tipped employees probably don’t make enough money to pay federal income tax anyway. And I suspect most tipped employees under-report their tips, so this might not make any difference for them. It will make a difference for anyone who exploits this in unintended ways.

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Like employers giving smaller wage raises because tips don’t pay federal taxes?

Don’t most tipped employees officially only earn minimum wage? And in most states, tipped minimum wage is like $2/hr.

I think that doesn’t apply to all states but, yes, I remember reading that some states allowed below minimum wage because of the expected tips. Hence my cynical comment.

I think temporary tax changes set to change back in future years should be illegal for CBO pricing. You could literally say 0 tax in the next 5 years, then double taxes the remaining 5 years and that’d be considered revenue neutral. And then the new “current policy” would be 0 taxes. In 5 years, who’s going to enact doubling everyone’s taxes from 5-year ago levels? Wouldn’t 0 taxes be the new baseline? In all these articles, I did not see much talk about whether this has a shot of passing through reconciliation btw.

As far as tips, I loved the article on bribes being part of it, if it were not so pathetic that bribes are now acceptable for US government officials. But I can’t help wonder how tips - which I already hate - are gonna explode as a result, and who’s gonna try to exploit this to shirk paying their fair amount of taxes.

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All but ~6 states have a lower tipped minimum wage, 15 at $2.13. Tipped wage - Wikipedia.

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JPM analysis of the tax bill

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What’s the CBO baseline? Current policy or current law?

So all this is with $600B Medicaid cuts already factored in? Ouch. Wasn’t reconciliation supposed to only allow for laws that did not add to the debt over 10-years?

And since the added deficit seems heavily front-loaded (most of it before 2028), if the law (and/or tariffs) change in the next 10 years, the debt picture will be far worse.

Since nobody seems to value fiscal responsibility any more, isn’t this a recipe for currency debasing ultimately as only way to not outright default?

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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but no one will doubt its size.

  • $40k salt cap, phase out somewhat for high incomes. Will go away again in ~4 years
  • estates $15m (single) is the new $7.5m, you can be richer and still not worry about this
  • Trump saving accounts some kinda traditional IRA style for minors, don’t think they can be made yet for a year tho
  • various income tax breaks for tips, overtime, seniors, etc
  • reporting threshold for 1099’s - $2k is the new $600, and indexed to inflation

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If you’re a small online seller and want to cheat on your taxes, the BBB liberalizes the 1099K reporting. It used to be 20K or 200 transactions, and now it’s 20K.and 200.

Almost certainly going to vary by state, since numerous states starting setting the $600 minimum for 1099-K reporting.

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So the extra deduction is just based on age 65+ and AGI period?

Damn political spam email from SSA confused me making it appear like it was connected to social security collecting/eligibility status when it has nothing to do with it.

Would have been way more useful to highlight when that it expires in 2028 for tax planning purposes.

This is what we get when pathetic tools are in charge.

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Axios explains some details:

https://www.axios.com/2025/07/07/social-security-email-big-beautiful-bill

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