new reports including from social media this past week that tax returns appear to be smaller. it s just one of the headlines making business news. the others includes this surprising number here. more than seven million americans are behind on their car loan payments. inequality is reaching levels we haven t seen since just before the great depression. and fallout from amazon walking away from its deal with new york city. ron insana joining me. the average tax return is down about 8.7% this year compared to last year. what s going on? a couple of things. one, there may have been underwithholding by u.s. corporations that hadn t figured out the details of a complex change in the tax code. two, if you have a limited liability company, a so-called pass-through entity, you have fewer deductions, as does every other american who no longer can
majority of the benefits going to the wealthiest 5%, 10% of the population, even the top .1% will benefit from this. there are all kinds of loopholes in the pass-through entity, the so-called llc or other corporate provisions that were going to benefit others. very difficult to figure out exactly what the loopholes are at the moment. i just got off the phone with my own accountant trying to understand in detail what this means. but it does not help individuals who are below $100,000. in fact, it probably doesn t help individuals who are below $200,000, given the analysis we ve seen thus far. it is not a middle class tax cut. it is not tax reform. we should point out the fact, shouldn t we, tim, that this is actually good news for people who do this for a living because people like ron insana who knows a lot more than the average person about taxes work is nevertheless on the phone to his accountant. accountants all over the country are trying to figure out what this means. bottom lin
obamacare and make money to assure other tax cuts do you think that s going to get through the senate? oh, i wouldn t know what the senate can do or not. i think that s up for senator mcconnell and his leadership team to figure out. but i would think the mandate would be something you could give up to get everything else. i mean, it s really, it s a tax bill, right? we need to get the taxes right. elizabeth: there s another incident i wanted to ask, the small businesses. i want to know if there s clarification or things that will change, especially as how they get organized and whether or not it s a pass-through entity. because there s a big difference if you re a small business coming down from 39.6 to that 29 that you passed. they put a provision for small businesses to pay a reduced rate to help people starting out business. with i think income up to