The United States has two main political parties. A clear difference between the two is the issue of taxes. While Republicans like to cut taxes wherever possible, Democrats will raise taxes at the drop of a hat. You might think of it as ‘political reflex.’ When we talk about taxes and the Internal Revenue Code, most of our discussion is on income tax, but there are other forms of taxation that tag along such as capital gains rate, corporate taxes, the estate tax, and so on.
Like the Republicans before, when Trump came into office the first time in 2017, he sent Congress a tax cut package that, when passed and signed into law later that year, became known as the Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA). The TCJA went through the reconciliation process when it passed, and therefore is subject to the Byrd Rule and will expire at the end of this year unless extended. If the Republican majority in Congress were to allow this to happen, tax law would revert to pre-2017 levels and represent a $4 trillion tax increase on the American people. Republicans do not want this to happen. On the other hand, Democrats would be delighted to blame a tax increase on Republicans.