Study: Nevada Counties Will Be Hardest Hit If Trump’s Tax Cuts Expire

The Wall Street Journal has analyzed the Tax Foundation estimates on which counties would be most impacted if the Trump Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expires in 2025. If the law expires, the Journal reports that “income taxes will go up for most households.” In 2017, the Journal reported that legislation represented, “the most far-reaching overhaul of the U.S. tax system in decades, reducing the corporate tax rate to its lowest point since 1939 and cutting individual taxes for most households next year.”

Recent Tax Foundation data shows that Nevada would be one of the most negatively impacted states if the law expires. Out of 3,143 counties analyzed, Douglas County in Northern Nevada will receive the fifth highest average tax increase (4.6%), neighboring Washoe County would receive the 21st highest average tax increase (3.7%), and Clark County breaks the top 100 with an average tax increase of 3 percent.

In 2017, then-Senator Kamala Harris voted against the Trump Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. As the presidential nominee in 2020, Harris pledged to scrap them, saying the U.S. should “get rid of the whole thing,” according to Bloomberg.

At the time, Bloomberg reported that a total repeal would eliminate some of the law’s more popular provisions, such as doubling the standard deduction and increasing the child tax credit. “On Day One, we’re going to repeal that tax bill that benefited the top 1 percent and corporations,” Harris said in a meeting with the American Federation of Teachers.

On the 2024 campaign trail, former President Trump has vowed to make the tax cuts permanent, dedicating his policy platform to the “forgotten men and women of America.”

In addition to the permanency of the tax cuts from his signature legislation, Trump has pledged to eliminate tax on tips for hospitality workers, a pledge that was later adopted by Nevada Democrats and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Not much is known regarding Harris’ policy proposals, but she has vowed to raise $5 trillion in taxes by targeting families and individuals making more than $400K a year and by raising taxes on corporations and investors. Yet, the New York Times reports that “the $5 trillion in tax increases embraced by Ms. Harris may not ultimately be enough to cover the cost of her and other Democrats’ ambitions next year.”