The Impact of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act on Individual Taxpayers: Implications for Equity and Policy

ABSTRACT This is the first comprehensive, quantitative study of how the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) impacts individual taxpayers. Although this study has a specific focus on equity, it also broadly considers how the TCJA benefits and harms the tax system. Relative to equity, this study finds that the TCJA granted a roughly even tax cut across all income groups—on a percentage basis. However, as high-income taxpayers pay the majority of income taxes, this group received the largest tax cut in absolute dollars. Next, the results indicate that certain convenience-focused TCJA provisions (e.g., reduced itemized deductions) did not reduce related desirable economic activities (e.g., charitable giving), implying that these provisions were successful. Finally, the U.S. tax system raised similar tax revenues pre- and post-TCJA, implying that economic growth largely covered the costs of the Act. The study concludes by discussing how its findings inform policy and future studies. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text. JEL Classifications: K34; H23; H24; H60.