October 09, 2016 - 8:13 PM
WASHINGTON - A claim from the second presidential debate and how it stacks up with the facts:
DONALD TRUMP: "She is raising your taxes, and I am lowering your taxes. ...She's raising everybody's taxes massively."
HILLARY CLINTON: "He would end up raising taxes on middle-class families"
THE FACTS: Clinton is not raising taxes on "everybody." Nearly all of Hillary Clinton's proposed tax increases would affect the wealthiest 5 per cent of Americans, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
Trump is proposing massive tax cuts for both individuals and businesses. Yet it's not clear that all Americans would benefit. The conservative Tax Foundation estimates that the bottom 80 per cent of taxpayers would see their after-tax income rise from 0.8 per cent to 1.9 per cent. The wealthiest 1 per cent would see their after-tax incomes rise at least 10.2 per cent to 16 per cent.
Yet Clinton may be right that Trump's proposals would increase taxes on many middle- and lower-income families. Trump's plan eliminates the personal exemption, which currently allows households to reduce their taxable income by $4,050 for each member of the household, including children. He would replace that with higher deductions, but for many single parents and families with three or more children, the standard deduction wouldn't be large enough to offset the loss of personal exemptions.
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Contributed by Associated Press writer Christopher Rugaber.
EDITOR'S NOTE _ A look at the veracity of claims by political figures
News from © The Associated Press, 2016