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House and Senate negotiators agreed to final legislation Friday, with changes made to a range of provisions affecting families, and final passage is expected by Wednesday. It will have been less than two months since the first legislation was introduced, offering little time for families to process the complex revisions.
“All I’ve been hearing is how this will be great for families,” Riding said. “But what I’m seeing is this will be great for others.”
She added: “I don’t feel like this is for us.”
It is hard to tell. That is because the tax plan is largely an exercise in giving with one hand and taking with the other. There are lower tax rates, but less-known is that the plan also ends the $4,050 personal exemption, which, in a household of seven, would reduce a family’s taxable income by more than $28,000 right from the start. There’s a more generous $2,000 child tax credit, but it, along with all the other individual tax cuts, is only temporary, expiring in eight years. And the benefit of swapping child tax credits for exemptions fades with the number of children, because of the complex math underpinning the plan.
