GOP tax bill cuts taxes for all income levels through 2025 if repeal of the individual mandate isn't taken into account, scorekeeper says

The Republican tax bill will lower taxes at all income levels through 2025, according to a new analysis from Congress' official scorekeeper that excludes the impact of undoing the Obamacare individual mandate.

Republicans have argued that the bill's tax cuts should be judged separately from the effects of zeroing out the mandate for people to buy health insurance.

That's because some people would voluntarily choose to forgo health insurance if there was no mandate, and as a result, they wouldn't get subsidies in the form of tax credits. Those unused tax credits look like tax hikes on paper, but Republicans argue they represent individuals' choices not to buy an expensive product they didn't want.

The new analysis from Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation from Monday, requested by Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., shows all income group levels receiving tax reductions through 2025, when the individual tax cuts are set to expire under the final bill.

In 2027, though, taxpayers earning under $50,000 would see net tax increases, per the analysis. Those tax hikes are largely driven by the bill's provision setting a more conservative measure on inflation that will push families into higher tax brackets and lessen the value of certain breaks over time.

The score of the bill excluding the individual mandate elimination is much more flattering of the Republican bill than the one that includes the repeal. That analysis showed the bill causing net tax increases for some lower-income families starting in 2021, well before expiration of the individual tax breaks.

While all income groups would get tax cuts, not every individual or family will. In a separate score of the bill released Tuesday, the Joint Committee on Taxation found that two-thirds of tax returns would get meaningful tax cuts in 2019. Meanwhile, 5.5 percent would get tax increases.

Over time, fewer people would get tax relief, and more would suffer tax hikes, because of the stingier inflation gauge and because the individual tax cuts, including the lowered rates and the doubled standard deduction, are set to expire in 2025. By 2027, one in five taxpayers would get a tax hike, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

Republicans, though, have said that they hope for future congresses to reinstate the individual tax cuts before they phase out.