New York Times: ‘I Got Back Every Penny’: Inside Trump’s Supercharged Tax Season

The law Republicans passed last year has so far been largely imperceptible to most Americans. That’s changing as tens of millions file their taxes this spring.

Across the country, as Americans are filing their returns, the full effect of the tax cuts that Republicans passed last year has started to come into view. While most Americans owe at least somewhat less tax as a result of the law, the benefits are unevenly and, to some tax experts, arbitrarily distributed.

That is because they depend on whether someone works for tips or overtime — or qualifies for one of the other new tax cuts, like an additional deduction for people 65 and older. And even for those who can claim one of the new tax cuts, the savings will reflect how much money they make. Someone who does not owe much in taxes gains little from a tax cut.

One of the most expensive additions that Republicans included in last year’s law was to lift the $10,000 limit on the state and local tax deduction, partly reversing what some policy experts considered the most progressive change they made in 2017.