Almost nothing can shock Americans anymore after the tumult of the last two years since the inauguration of Donald Trump — sex scandals, foreign influence on politics, bribes, endless golfing, cronyism, and a rise in hate crimes directly attributable to the menace in the White House right now, all have been part of the fabric of society in an increasing pattern since the dawn of the age of Trump.
But one thing can still shock us, and that’s when the government does something that widely affects families of every color, every sexual orientation, every gender identity, every religion, and almost every income level — take away our money.
That’s been the story of the year so far for tax filers who got their W2s back from employers no later than the end of January, and those that have filed early have discovered that the GOP tax bill that passed at the end of 2017 — just in time to affect this year’s taxes — has seriously cut into refunds they were expecting.
You’ve already seen the tales of woe from Trump voters who feel betrayed by the President and their party, and you know that voters who opposed the tax bill already knew that it was going to help the rich and hurt everyone else.
But just in case you hadn’t seen all the horrible takes on the tax refund meltdown happening across America, Fox News is here to tell you today…
It’s all your fault.
That’s right, Fox and Friends played host to Fox Business News’ Charles Payne to get his perspective on how tax refunds could go so horribly wrong for so many Americans who were counting on them to make a down payment on a car, fix or replace a major appliance, cover their child’s community college tuition for a quarter, or any number of the other things that we do with those yearly “windfalls” of our own money.
Charles had pearls of wisdom for all of the non-psychics out there:
Here’s the thing. For the most part, the IRS is telling everyone that they just simply did not make the proper adjustments on the withholding at the beginning of the year. So they have been making all of this money.”
Oh! That makes so much more sense now, Chuck. We screwed it up, but it’s okay, because all throughout the year, we made more on every check because fewer taxes were being taken out. Am I getting that right?
While people were obviously seeing fatter paychecks they were still counting on that refund they always got. Which is interesting because, you kind of hinted at it, that we would allow the IRS to have like a $2,000 loan, our money, right? Hold on to it because we overpaid. So people should probably consider making these adjustments anyway, unless you want to give the IRS two or three grand of your money to hold for a year. Maybe they can make the interest on it and you won’t.”
Actually, it IS interesting, Charles, because even you say that tax refunds are generally “two or three grand of your money,” but what the Tax Policy Center at the Brookings Institute says is that the bottom 20 percent of earners saw about a $60 difference in their yearly pay, the next 20 percent saw roughly a $380 difference, and the top 0.1 percent — one-tenth of one percent — saved about a hundred and ninety grand.
That bottom 40 percent? Those are the people who depend on the tax cuts, you geniuses. Even the lead author of the tax bill, Texas Republican Kevin Brady got it way wrong when he tweeted that tax refunds had “nothing to do with your overall tax bill.”
CLAIM: Lower tax refunds = higher taxes.
FACTS:
– Tax refund has ZERO to do with your overall tax bill.
– Refunds are a sign you’re overpaying the IRS monthly.
– Most Americans got tax cut in 2018 paychecks – when needed the most.
– 90% of middle class got $2,100 ave. tax cut pic.twitter.com/NMMmIksdvK— Rep. Kevin Brady (@RepKevinBrady) February 12, 2019
The problem here is that Brady is reaching higher and higher into income brackets to use the term “middle class.” And while most Americans did see some cut in taxes on their paychecks, those numbers in no way matched up with the tax refunds they used to get.
Watch the clip here:
Featured image via screen capture
