Republicans Brace for ‘Total Tax Cliff’ as Trump’s Term Expires in 2028—What You Need to Know

GOP strategists are scrambling to avert a fiscal disaster—just as Trump’s presidency sunsets. Here’s the breakdown.

### The Looming Tax Avalanche

No sugarcoating it: 2028 could slam wallets harder than a bear market. Republicans are quietly drafting contingency plans—because nobody wants to explain soaring IRS bills to voters.

### The Crypto Parallel

Think of it like a hard fork with no rollback option. While DeFi protocols let you escape bad trades, the tax code? Not so forgiving. (Cue the usual suspects blaming ‘big government’ instead of their own math.)

### Bottom Line

Whether you’re hodling BTC or 401(k)s, start calculating those exit strategies now. After all, in finance and politics, the house always wins—until it doesn’t.

Temporary cuts target working-class voters

The expiring provisions are mostly the ones Trump introduced in the lead-up to the 2024 election that won him votes from targeted constituencies. 

In October, while speaking in Detroit, Trump proposed making auto loan interest fully deductible. The suggestion followed another he had hinted at four months prior, at an event in Las Vegas, to remove taxes on tips for hospitality workers in Nevada. 

In New York, he announced a tax credit for family caregivers, a demographic that includes over four million residents in the state.

In total, at least seven targeted tax initiatives were proposed between September and October, according to a Reuters tally.

Yet, these worker-focused cuts are scheduled to become obsolete at the end of 2028 under the current House legislation, unlike the TCJA’s enactment that benefit corporations and higher-income earners, which Republicans are pushing to make permanent.

“There’s a total tax cliff in there. There’s about $1.5 trillion worth of taxes that expire in four or five years,” Texas Rep Chip Roy said in a press briefing last week. “This is why we end up with the same problem.”

Senate split on tax cuts

The bill is expected to undergo revisions in the Senate, where budget changes in the accounting baseline may allow up to $5.5 trillion in tax cuts to be excluded from official deficit projections. 

Still, many Senate Republicans appear willing to maintain the split, making business-focused cuts permanent and allowing Trump’s newer worker-focused cuts to expire.

“If it’s good enough to include, let’s make it permanent,” reckoned Senator RON Johnson, a member of the Senate Finance Committee. “Let’s have that discussion.”

Senator John Hoeven also supported the extension of tax provisions, although he was unconvinced about social-focused items like the expanded child tax credit. 

“Something like the child tax credit, with a huge transfer payment aspect to it, I’d have to say that’s something I’d have to check on,” Hoeven remarked last week.

However, budget watchdogs warn that the structure of the bill, with expirations and accounting tricks, could make the US deficit situation worse.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the House-passed tax package WOULD add $2.4 trillion to federal deficits over the next decade. A subsequent analysis requested by Democrats included interest payments and pushed the total impact to $3 trillion.

The Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) projected only minimal economic gains from the plan. It estimated that GDP would rise from 1.83% to just 1.86% in the long run.

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