The IRS has released its statistics covering 2018 tax returns filed by individuals.
As you may remember, 2018 was the first year after the enactment of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. This law included significant changes to the tax code, including increasing the standard deduction, easing the alternative minimum tax, putting a $10,000 cap on state and local tax write-offs, eliminating the 2% miscellaneous itemized deduction, increasing the child tax credit, plus many other changes. The qualified business income deduction was a new concept introduced in this legislation, and tax rates were changed for individuals and corporations.
A few highlights:
- Eighteen million filers benefited from the new 20% QBI deduction.
- Total child and dependent care credits increased from $27 billion in 2017 to $81.5 billion in 2018.
- People filing Schedule A itemized deductions decreased for 46.9 million in 2017 to 17.53 million in 2018.
- Itemized deductions claimed also reduced from $1.4 trillion in 2017 to $648.9 billion in 2018.
- The most significant change, though, probably concerns AMT. In 2017 5.07 million returns were filed with an AMT tax totaling $36.4 billion. In 2018 only about $4 billion of AMT tax was collected on 244,000 returns.
For someone like me, the IRS data contains a plethora of interesting information, and this post could continue for quite some time. However, the above highlights what I think most people might be mildly interested in, and it leaves no doubt that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 was the most significant tax legislation of the past 30 years.