{"id":201,"date":"2025-02-05T01:10:14","date_gmt":"2025-02-05T01:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/?p=201"},"modified":"2025-02-05T01:10:15","modified_gmt":"2025-02-05T01:10:15","slug":"dont-drive-angry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/dont-drive-angry\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cDon\u2019t Drive Angry!\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Three hundred sixty-four days out of the year, Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania is a sleepy one-horse town of 5,800 souls, nestled in the foothills of the Appalachians 84 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. But on that\u00a0other<\/em>\u00a0glorious day of the year, it\u2019s the center of the universe. On February 2, a mangy groundhog named Phil dons a top hat and comes out of his hole to look for his shadow. If he sees it, we\u2019re doomed to six more weeks of winter. If not, spring is on its way.

This year, the fearless 15-pound forecaster saw his shadow, which was no comfort to anyone still shivering through a winter that saw eight inches of snow in\u00a0New Orleans<\/em>. The good news is, according to\u00a0stormfax.com<\/a>, Phil’s forecasts are right just 39% of the time. (That probably puts him on par with your favorite TV forecaster.) But that didn’t stop upwards of 50,000 people from gathering before dawn to see the hardy rodent appear.

Back in the 1993 film\u00a0Groundhog Day<\/em>, Bill Murray starred as weatherman Phil Connors, sent to Punxsutawney to cover the festivities. That night, a blizzard hits, forcing Phil to overnight in town. He wakes up the next morning to find it’s February 2\u00a0again<\/em>, his day unfolding exactly like the day before. Ultimately, he realizes he’s doomed to live the same day forever. Even by killing himself, he can’t break the cycle.

Since then,\u00a0Groundhog Day<\/em>\u00a0has become a cultural shorthand for living the same events over and over. So, what does that have to do with taxes? Well, last month, Donald Trump returned to the presidency\u2014and his tax plans for 2025 sound eerily familiar to those who remember the first year of his\u00a0last<\/em>\u00a0term.

Back in 2017, Congress passed the most sweeping tax reform bill since 1986. The legislation included lowering rates in exchange for capping or eliminating a host of deductions that complicated taxes for millions of filers. Most significantly, the law limited deductions for state and local taxes at just $10,000 per return, single or joint. That move alone saved the Treasury $1.2 trillion over 10 years and made most of the\u00a0other<\/em>\u00a0savings possible.

The problem today is that Congress passed that law under special \u201cbudget reconciliation\u201d rules that forced Congress to \u201csunset\u201d those rules at the end of 2025. That means that, like Bill Murray trying to woo Andie MacDowell, Congress will spend much of this year fighting to extend the\u00a0same<\/em>\u00a0rules they passed eight years ago.

Oh, and this time, Trump has also promised to restore that $1.2 trillion unlimited state and local tax deduction.\u00a0And<\/em>\u00a0eliminate taxes on tips, overtime, and Social Security benefits.\u00a0And<\/em>\u00a0create an itemized deduction for car loan interest. (So much for tax simplification!)\u00a0And<\/em>\u00a0his House Republican caucus can afford to lose just two votes before needing Democrats to bail him out\u2014which they surely won\u2019t be inclined to do. If they can\u2019t tie it up with a neat little bow, taxes go up for over half of Americans.\u00a0Wheeeeee!<\/a>

Bill Murray was the perfect choice to make\u00a0Groundhog Day<\/em>\u00a0into a hit comedy. If Hollywood made\u00a0April 15<\/em>\u00a0into a movie, they’d look for someone like Steven King to write it! But you don’t have to wait for lawmakers to see their shadow before you can cut your taxes, because the\u00a0real<\/em>\u00a0key to minimizing that tax bill is\u00a0planning<\/em>. Most tax pros do a fine job recording history. But we’re here to help you\u00a0write<\/em>\u00a0it, with a full menu of deductions, credits, loopholes, and strategies. Punxsutawney Phil predicts you’ll love the savings!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three hundred sixty-four days out of the year, Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania is a sleepy one-horse town of 5,800 souls, nestled in the foothills of the Appalachians 84 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. But on that other glorious day of the year, it\u2019s the center of the universe. On February 2, a mangy groundhog named Phil dons a top hat and comes out of his hole to look for his shadow. If he sees it, we\u2019re doomed to six more weeks of winter. If not, spring is on its way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[90,3,91],"tags":[50,4,10,11,9,6,64,29],"class_list":{"0":"post-201","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act","8":"category-taxes","9":"category-tcja","10":"tag-irs","11":"tag-tax","12":"tag-tax-reduction","13":"tag-tax-savings","14":"tag-tax-strategy","15":"tag-taxes","16":"tag-taxpolicy","17":"tag-wealth-tax","18":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":203,"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201\/revisions\/203"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bourbonnaistax.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}