So the Dolt45 tax plan kicks in ...

[haele]

21. It's not a millionaire thing. Lots of households make $100K a year with two wage earners.

These can be people who just have an associates from a local CC and a bunch of certificates making $50K - $60K each (because many National companies who do work in California will provide a locality increase in wages for lower to mid level skilled labor) doing lower to mid-level level contractor or technical work. If your'e a contractor or your job requires industry membership - even if you're only making $50K, there's the potential that you can be racking up $5K - $15K a year on what used to be deductible work expenses. Heck, drivers who get paid by the mile, or if you have travel expenses for your work, there's a lot of money out of your pocket just to do your job.

And from what I'm hearing from a lot of contracted, semi-skilled and skilled labor, those deductions are now ether seriously reduced or out and out gone.--
The reduction in mileage is especially difficult for some small indie business owners.

As for near million dollar homes - with good credit, a 20% down payment, and a history of two/three years at around a six figure household income with few debts, a middle aged couple might well have be approved for a 30 year mortgage for an $800K/$900K house in some areas of California over the past decade or so.


From my own experience - since 1992, I have always try to break even, re-setting my exemptions as soon as the new tax tables come out so that I'm usually only $200 a year to the Feds either owing or owed.

This year, I lost around $2500 in business related and SALT deductions that I would normally take, even when taking into account the Trump "Pay Raise" scam, which only would have netted me an extra $1K "in my pocket" for the remainder of 2018.
If I hadn't run numbers and switched up my exemptions right after the tax bill went into effect so that the scam was basically nullified, I would have owed around $4K instead of the $500 I ended up paying the Feds.

Haele