US Senator John Thune’s Weekly Column: Working Families Get a Tax Cut

Working Families Get a Tax Cut
By Sen. John Thune

It’s been almost one year since Republicans passed the Working Families Tax Cuts and secured permanent tax relief for hardworking South Dakotans and families across the country. And after one year, it’s clear that Republicans’ landmark tax relief bill is delivering on its promise to put more money in Americans’ pockets.

At the start of this year, Americans saw their take-home pay increase as the new tax law took effect. When they filed their taxes in April, many Americans saw a significantly larger tax refund. And we recently got data showing that 97 percent of Americans saw a tax cut this year, collectively saving $82 billion on their tax bills.

In many cases, the tax savings from the Working Families Tax Cuts is significant, and as this recent data shows, the overwhelming majority of people seeing tax relief earned less than $200,000 last year, and many earned less than $100,000. As its name indicates, the Working Families Tax Cuts is cutting taxes for Americans who get up every day and go to work to provide for their family and create a better life for their children. This bill lets these hardworking Americans keep more of their hard-earned money – money that they would otherwise be sending to the IRS without Republicans’ bill.

Millions of Americans were eligible for additional tax relief this year thanks to the Working Families Tax Cuts. Middle-income Americans saw tax relief in the hundreds of dollars, and many saw a tax cut greater than $1,000 this year. The new senior deduction helped 35 million older Americans reduce their tax bill. No tax on tips provided relief to 7.5 million workers, and 29 million workers took the new overtime deduction too.

This bill was designed to help make life easier for everyday Americans, and beyond lower tax bills, one of the ways it does that is through new investment accounts for American kids. The tax-advantaged Trump Accounts created in this bill allow parents to save for their children’s future beyond their education: to give them a nest egg to help them buy their first home, start a business, and help them pursue their American Dream. For kids born between 2025 and 2028, parents can opt in for an initial investment of $1,000 from the federal government to get their savings started.

Republicans had working families in mind when we wrote this bill. We recognized that families’ budgets have been stretched in recent years, and we were determined to let them keep more of their hard-earned money to make it easier to make ends meet and save for the future. There’s a number of ways this bill does that, and the American people are seeing it with their own eyes.

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