Originally Posted by seemoreroyals View Post
Danny, debt and deficits are sure to continue to get worse if Trump gets reelected. My wife and I paid twice as much in taxes as we did before the top one tenth of one percent tax cut went into effect. Much of ours is because my wife gets a lot of hand pays each year and the ability to offset on our tax return was largely eliminated making us have to pay tax on the majority of her w2g's. Like most people that go to the casino overall we lose more than we win most but that does not matter to the IRS in determining gambling wins and losses. Much of the excess $1 trillion of debt that has been created during Trump's tenure has to do with excess spending but I think that much of it has to do with the top tax payers contributing less in revenues. It's the same thing all over again promised when the r's were able to take control of all three branches of government.

We need someone that can work with both d's and r's and get stuff done and cut spending. I did not vote for Trump but I was hopeful that his partisanship to his 30% would give way to willingness to work with the congress and the senate to pass common sense measures that would be good for everyone. And sadly, looking at his body of work, as long as he remains in office I do not expect anything to change.

More insults. More snake oil salesmanship. More adoration of Putin and falling in love with the Korean dictator. More obsessing over building a wall and blaming all of our social problems on people of color. More taking credit for good will and accomplishments that were actually achieved by others. More blaming others for his own ineptness and self-created problems. More undermining democracy by attacking the media for keeping us informed and telling us like it is whether we like it or not. These are just some of the underlying habits and beliefs that define Trump's presidency that will lead to further damage to our country if Trump is reelected.
The change in the standard deduction did not eliminate my ability to deduct losses. It just meant that I had to bring back in to my tax calculation all the stuff that I could have just not worried about and taken the new higher standard deduction if I didn't have gambling income and associated losses. But I live in a high tax state where that $10K max on local and state tax payments is not hard to hit. So on MFJ, it's another $14K of deductions before you exceed the standard, which can include charitable donations. At $1200 a pop minimum it's not that many handpays before you're over it.