Trump's Project 2025 will bring large middle class tax increase

[progree]

35. But the Trump tax "cut" eliminated the personal exemption and the dependent exemption

The personal exemption was almost as large as the change to the standard deduction. So on net, comparing the standard deduction before and the personal exemption before to the doubled standard deduction after, we got only a small break there.

The loss of the dependents exemption was made up for by the doubling of the child tax credit in some cases. In some cases more than made up for. In some cases didn't quite make up for it -- that one depended on what tax bracket a person was in.

Myself, I itemized deductions both before and after the tax "cut", and I lost out on the deal. But only like 10% (I forget the figure) of taxpayers itemize after the tax "cut". I also wasn't hurt by the loss of the SALT deduction limitation, but I came very close. Someone who lost out on that likely got hurt.

I agree the tax bracket reductions helped.

It all was a mixed bag, but everything I've seen, e.g. Tax Policy Center and Tax Foundation said it was a small tax cut for most people