05.08.24

Extending Trump Tax Cuts Would Add $4.6 Trillion to the Deficit, CBO Finds

Washington, D.C.—According to the latest report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), extending the Trump tax cuts for the next 10 years—as Republicans have proposed—would add $4.6 trillion to the deficit.

The report, written at the urging of Senator Whitehouse (D-RI), Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, and Senator Wyden (D-OR), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, finds that the extension would cost $1.1 trillion more than previously estimated.  The Trump tax cuts overwhelmingly benefit large corporations and the wealthiest Americans, and extending them remains a top policy priority among Republicans.

“Republicans are awfully eager to shield their megadonors from paying taxes,” said Budget Chairman Whitehouse. “Remember when Republicans held our entire economy hostage demanding cuts to IRS enforcement so they couldn’t go after wealthy tax cheats.  Remember the Trump tax scam cutting taxes for billionaires and big corporations.  Now they’re set on extending those tax cuts, even though it would blow up the deficit. The Trump tax cuts were a gift to the ultrarich and a rotten deal for American families and small businesses. With their impending expiration, we have a chance to undo the damage, fix our corrupted tax code, and have big corporations and the ultra-wealthy begin to pay their fair share.”

“The Republican tax plan is to double down on Trump's handouts to corporations and the wealthy, run the deficit into the stratosphere, and make it impossible to save Medicare and Social Security or help families with the cost of living in America,” said Finance Committee Chairman Wyden. “Republicans have planned all along on making Trump's tax handouts to the rich permanent, but they hid the true cost with timing gimmicks and a 2025 deadline that threatens the middle class with an automatic tax hike if they don't get what they want. In short, they're focused on helping the rich get richer, and everybody else can go pound sand. Democrats are going to stand by our commitment to protect the middle class while ensuring that corporations and the wealthy pay a fair share.”

According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, extending the Trump tax cuts would create a $112.6 billion windfall for the top five percent of income earners in the first year alone.  The richest five percent of Americans would reap 40 percent of the benefits from the law’s extension in the first year alone—more than the bottom 80 percent—making this legislation one of the most regressive and expensive tax giveaways in history.  The average taxpayer in the top one percent would save nearly $26,000 in just 2026, primarily from cuts to the estate tax and on taxes paid by pass-through businesses.

CBO’s previous cost estimate for extending the Trump tax cuts was $3.5 trillion through 2033.  The new estimate is part of a report analyzing alternative assumptions about spending and revenues.  It also includes a projection that permanently extending the enhancements made to the Affordable Care Act’s premium tax credits—originally enacted in 2021’s American Rescue Plan Act and extended through 2025 by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act—would cost $383 billion, a fraction of the cost of extending the Trump tax cuts.

This Congress, the Budget Committee has held hearings on how the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations are driving up the national debt, how cracking down on wealthy tax cheats brings down the deficit, how the Trump tax law shipped jobs and profits overseas, how the wealthy and big corporations exploit loopholes to dodge taxes and hide profits offshore to evade paying what they owe, and how making the wealthy pay their fair share could ensure Medicare and Social Security solvency indefinitely.

Read the full CBO report here.