In my last post I spoke about President Trump’s promise to reform taxes by closing loopholes and make filing your taxes easier, perhaps even on a postcard.

But that part of tax reform matters only to those taxpayers who itemize. If you file a tax return you have the choice of taking the standard deduction or itemizing. Here’s my layman’s explanation: Your employer is required to send you a W2 form that shows how much money they paid you the previous year. That’s your gross income. You now have to choose whether to take the standard deduction or itemize your deductions.

Currently the standard deduction is $6,350 if you are married but filing separately from your spouse. It’s $12,700 if you and your spouse file jointly. If you’re single and head of your household it’s $9,350. You deduct this number from your gross income and it becomes a taxable income. According to the Tax Foundation, 68.5% of filers do this.

But if you’re in the early years of an expensive mortgage, if you donate lots of money to charities, or if you’re eligible for some of the countless other deductions, you may want to itemize. If these deductions total more than your standard deduction it makes sense to itemize. From the Tax Foundation 30.1% of taxpayers do this. OK, if you’re doing the math that leaves 1.6%. Those are taxpayers who don’t make enough money to pay anything in taxes.

This brings us to the end of part 1: determining your taxable income. Part 2 determines how much tax we pay on this income. But what percentage do we pay? When the government began collecting income taxes in 1913 it was determined that the wealthy would pay a higher percentage of their income than poor people: they created tax brackets. They specifically did not institute a flat tax (where everyone would pay the same percentage of income), arguing that those with higher incomes could afford to pay a higher percentage than those with lower incomes. From time to time politicians suggest a flat tax and I wrote about it in 2011.

Currently we have 7 tax brackets, and those in the highest bracket (39.6%) report a taxable income of $418,400 or higher. President Trump proposes only 3 brackets, and lowers the highest rate from 39.6% to 35%. And yet he claims this won’t benefit him or the rest of the 1%.

Simply put, it’s not true. In my last post I argued that his promise to close loopholes won’t happen and in this post I’m claiming that lowering the tax rate for the wealthiest will benefit only themselves.

More later.