As Republicans celebrate the passing of a tax bill that will disproportionately benefit the rich (and will even benefit Republican lawmakers directly), Trump told Americans this morning that she is “really looking forward to doing a lot of traveling in April when people realize the effect that this has.”
Trump seemingly forgot that, since the tax plan wouldn’t be implemented until 2018, Americans would file their 2017 returns in pretty much the same way. But the real problem is that she also claimed that “the vast majority” of Americans will be able to file their taxes on a single postcard, perpetuating an idea that many tax experts have said is not exactly true.
“It’s kind of crazy to say you can file on a postcard when, first, no one is going to put their Social Security number on a postcard” Mark Mazur, a director of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, told Reuters.
Republicans have been using the “postcard” image to sell a plan that they claimed would simplify the tax code. Since 2016, Paul Ryan has carried around a mockup of a postcard to illustrate how simple the tax code would be through Republican reform. In November, as Republicans unveiled their tax plan, President Donald Trump kissed a tax return “postcard” prop. But in fact, they have actually made tax filing more complicated for many.
“The whole purpose of tax reform is to eliminate tax breaks to simplify the tax code and reduce rates,” Marc Goldwein, senior vice president for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget in Washington, told The New York Times. “But from what I can see, they only repeal one significant tax break, and very few if any tiny ones.”