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Americans paid almost $64 billion less in federal income taxes during the first year under the Republican tax overhaul signed into law in late 2017 by President Donald Trump, with some of the sharpest drops clustered among taxpayers earning between $25,000 and $100,000 a year, even as the overall number of refunds dropped during a turbulent tax season.

That’s according to Internal Revenue Service data released this week, giving the most up-to-date look yet at how people fared at tax time in the first year of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

The data were released Monday, providing the first substantial look at the effects of a tax law that reduced rates for five of the seven income-tax brackets and also reduced the corporate income-tax rate. The 2017 law expanded certain credits and deductions while capping others, including a $10,000 state- and local tax-deduction limit, which, critics said, singled out residents of left-leaning states that happened to have higher local taxes.

The IRS data arrive as the 2020 presidential campaign intensifies and taxes shape up as an important campaign topic. Trump is of late pledging another tax cut, while Democratic candidates vow to increase taxes on the rich and corporations, who, they say, aren’t paying as much as they should, particularly after the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was passed in 2017 without a single Democratic vote.

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