Continuing low tax rates for the rich and corporations will hurt working families [View all]

Summary: Extending Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will have painful trade-offs for the U.S. economy and most Americans.

Key findings

The U.S. “fiscal gap”—how much taxes need to be raised or spending cut to keep public debt stable as a share of gross domestic product—was entirely created by the Republican tax cuts of 2001, 2003, and 2017.

The “tax gap”—the amount of taxes owed but not paid each year—is currently larger than the overall fiscal gap. It is driven by the richest U.S. households and businesses cheating the law and underpaying taxes.

Extending the expiring provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) would increase the fiscal gap by nearly 50%, from 2.1% to 3.3%.

No matter how these tax cuts are financed, the result will hurt most working families, especially low-income households. The most damaging way to finance TCJA extensions would be with spending cuts for programs like SNAP or Medicaid.

https://www.epi.org/publication/tcja-extensions-2025/