TAX CHANGES: “If this is wrong, I’d like to see the NYT refute it.”

I think — I don’t know — that the NYT is expressing concern about taxpayers who itemize and have a big state-and-local tax deduction. I’m one of those taxpayers, but I used an on-line calculator that showed that my household would save around $1000 a year under the GOP plan. And we pay over $17,000 a year in property taxes alone. The new standard deduction is that big. So it looks as though there are a lot of people who currently itemize, who’ll just be better off taking the standard deduction. Then there are the many many people — the majority of taxpayers — who are already taking the standard deduction and who’ll get a much larger standard deduction. Why isn’t the NYT happy for these people? I suspect — again, I haven’t figured it out — that the NYT is looking at all the people who just don’t owe much income tax. Once you’ve got your taxable income down to nothing, it doesn’t matter how much more you could have deducted. So those people get nothing out of the bigger standard deduction.

My sympathy when people who aren’t paying taxes fail to participate in a tax cut aimed at those who do pay is very limited.