A new analysis of Project 2025’s proposal for tax policies provided to CBS News by Brendan Duke of the progressive Center for American Progress shows that the proposed tax changes are wildly skewed toward the wealthy. The plan, outlined in the book Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, suggests changing the tax system by proposing just two rates: “a 15% flat tax for people earning up to about $168,000, and a 30% income tax for people earning above that,” as CBS News explained. While that sounds straightforward, the result would be dramatic. From CBS; emphasis added

Millions of low- and middle-class households would likely face significantly higher taxes under the Project 2025's proposals.

[Duke] estimated that a middle-class family with two children and an annual income of $100,000 would pay $2,600 in additional federal income tax if they faced a 15% flat tax on their income due to the loss of the 10% and 12% tax brackets. If the Child Tax Credit were also eliminated, they would pay an additional $6,600 compared with today's tax system, Duke said. 

By comparison, a married couple with two children and earnings of $5 million a year would enjoy a $325,000 tax cut, he estimated.

…

Millions of U.S. households earning less than $168,000 would likely face higher taxes with a 15% rate. Currently, the bottom half of American taxpayers, who earn less than $46,000 a year, pay an effective tax rate of 3.3% — which reflects their income taxes after deductions, tax credits and other benefits.

Right-wing media have long claimed that lower- and middle-income families should pay more taxes while advocating that the rich should pay less.

If raising taxes on middle- and lower-income Americans wasn’t bad enough, Project 2025 would also make it easier for the wealthy to cheat on their taxes.

First, some quick backstory.

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 provided the IRS with significant funding to step up enforcement against people who refused to pay what they owed in taxes. Right-wing media framed this as a move intended “to weaponize” the IRS — at times even suggesting that the agency would be kicking in doors of middle-class families to take their property. One MAGA media personality even claimed, “They’re going to weaponize the IRS, use the government to intimidate every single Trump supporter and MAGA supporter in America.” Charlie Kirk claimed the law would target “dissidents.” This was all complete nonsense.

We know now — and it was clear at the time — that this IRS funding was entirely about cracking down on wealthy tax cheats. 

The IRS announced this week that it had collected $1 billion in back taxes from wealthy tax cheats. Contrary to suggestions by right-wing media, the IRS said that the campaign had focused on “taxpayers with more than $1 million in income and more than $250,000 in recognized tax debt.”

Project 2025 wants to undo all of that, explicitly calling for Congress to reverse that funding of the IRS.

But even if Congress doesn’t reverse the IRS funding, another Project 2025 proposal could lead to a similar end.

First is the banal-named Schedule F. Schedule F is an executive order that would reclassify thousands of federal employees as “at-will” workers and give the administration the ability to fire employees who don’t agree with or follow the extremist policies suggested by Project 2025. 

This Project 2025 policy is not some abstract thing. During Trump’s first term, one of his former aides, Alyssah Farah, saw a draft of the executive order. Yesterday she told Jake Tapper: “I saw the actual executive order at the end of the last administration, ready to go, that would remake every civil servant into a political appointee and a loyalist to Trump. And it goes beyond Social Security and some of these technical things. It's the national security apparatus, it's our emergency management, it's FEMA, it's responding to natural disasters, pandemics. Those would all be our subject matters. The Dr. Faucis of the world would be replaced with whatever loyalist he puts into those positions.”

With this sort of power, Trump could easily install cronies in the IRS who would roll back enforcement against tax cheats.

Trump may have another option as well. While it’s not mentioned in Mandate, a Project 2025 partner wants to empower Trump to use “impoundment” to unilaterally withhold any spending authorized by Congress.

The Center for Renewing America wrote a white paper arguing that a 1974 law banning impoundment  — which restricts a president from unilaterally refusing to spend funds allocated by Congress — represented an improper break from historical precedent. It stated that the White House should have the authority to halt congressional spending virtually at will.

A leading Republican in the House has already signaled that he agrees that Trump can use impoundment but did ask him to “negotiate” with Congress over it. Media Matters recently deeply examined the MAGA impoundment proposal — you can read more here.

You can also read more about Project 2025’s proposals that would benefit the wealthy here.