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As Coloradans scramble to file their income taxes before the April 15 deadline, a new analysis shows that new tax policies under the second Trump administration will negatively impact most Americans while benefiting the wealthy and corporations.

In 2026, the top 20 percent of earners will get a $380 billion tax cut, with $117 billion going to the richest 1 percent alone. In Colorado, said Michael Ettlinger, senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the bottom 95 percent of households will pay more in taxes.

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"The bottom line of the Trump tax policies of 2025," he said, "is that middle-income people are going to pay about $850 more in 2026 than if we’d just continued the tax policies we’d had."

Tax cuts passed under the Republicans’ signature "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" are projected to add $4.6 trillion to the national debt. In an effort to reduce that price tag, lawmakers cut $1.2-trillion in spending, largely from health care. Republicans have long argued that allowing Americans to keep more of their earnings will boost the economy, which will create more jobs and increase revenues.

Live Nation, Palantir, Tesla and Yum Foods – which owns KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut – paid close to zero federal corporate income taxes last year on a combined $8 billion in profits.

Under HR 1, Ettlinger said, corporations that do pay taxes will contribute $234 billion less this year, and nearly $2 trillion less over the next decade.

"The corporate tax cuts embedded in the Trump tax policies have certainly helped shareholders and the owners of corporations," he said, "who are enormously wealthy, but have not spawned some boom to help workers."

The biggest change in tax policy affecting most Americans is President Donald Trump's tariffs. The U.S. Supreme Court found many of Trump's sweeping tariffs unconstitutional, but some still remain in effect.

Ettlinger noted that the bottom 20 percent of working families spend virtually all of their income on necessities, but the wealthiest Americans literally have more money than they could possibly spend on imports subject to tariffs.

"The upshot of that," he said, "is that just a very high percentage of your income is effectively being taxed if you’re a lower-income person than if you’re a very high-income person."