Now you see it

The U.S. House of Representatives last week approved H.R. 6760, which makes permanent last year’s Republican tax “cut” measure.

The Nevada vote was split. U.S. Reps Dina Titus and Ruben Kihuen voted against the bill. Reps. Mark Amodei and Jacky Rosen voted for it.

Nevada Republican politicians like Jim Marchant, Jim Wheeler and Dean Heller have been touting bonuses given to workers by corporations, allegedly as a result of last year’s Republican tax cuts. They’ve cited corporations like Alaska Air Group, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines, AT&T, Bank of America, Best Buy, JetBlue, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Wal-Mart, Waste Management and Wells Fargo, some of which barely pay their workers in the first place, and some of which have received corporate welfare from taxpayers.

With Republicans all over the country using these same talking points, the Pulitzer-winning fact checker Politifact looked at some of the claims. Americans for Tax Reform, a conservative anti-tax group that supported the enactment of the GOP tax cut told Politifact that at least 408 companies have announced raises, bonuses or 401K assistance for four million workers. The problem is that this amounts to less than three percent of U.S. workers. That was in March, but the number of workers affected could have quadrupled since then and still would account for fewer than 12 percent of workers.

Politifact further reported, “The top 1 percent of earners would receive about 80 percent of the tax benefit [of the 2017 tax cut]. This income group would see its after-tax income increase 8.5 percent, whereas the bottom 95 percent of earners would see an average 1.2 percent increase in their after-tax income.”

In addition, Politifact pointed out that in this tight labor market, the bonuses and other benefits might have been given by the corporations trying to hold onto their workers, whether the tax cuts had been approved or not.

The bill approved last week also made permanent limits on how much taxpayers can deduct for state and local taxes.

If last week’s measure had not been approved, the provisions of the 2017 law would have expired in 2025.