This is the Banner of a recent editorial that appeared in the Wall Street Journal.
The essence:
To see what a good deal we have now, let’s look at the numbers. A married couple filing jointly shows $78,000 of ordinary income, their current marginal rate is 12%. When the Trump tax cuts expire, their marginal rate will more than double, to 25%.
If you receive $30,000 from Social Security and have $36,000 of other income, you will be taxed at a marginal rate of 46%, even while supposedly being in the 25% tax bracket (because of the nutty way Social Security is taxed). In some cases, your tax rate can go as high as 56%. More people will experience rising tax rates throughout retirement—first gradually, following the accelerated required minimum distributions from their retirement accounts, and then suddenly, when the first spouse dies and the survivor has to file as a single taxpayer.
The Trump tax reform doubled standard deductions, such that far fewer taxpayers still bother to itemize......These deductions and exemptions will be cut in half when the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expires.
All this may seem a long way off. But if Joe Biden is elected and the Democrats take three more seats in the Senate, some of these changes could happen as soon as next year.
