To be perfectly clear, although the standard deduction has roughly doubled, it doesn’t mean that people are getting double the tax break — far from it, actually.
While the standard deduction has increased, the valuable personal exemption has gone away. The reasoning for this is that, in addition to a tax cut, lawmakers were also attempting to simplify the tax code. So instead of giving taxpayers a standard deduction and a number of exemptions, these two things were essentially combined into a higher standard deduction.
In plain English, a personal exemption is a certain amount of income Americans can exclude from their taxable income each year. In prior tax years, Americans could claim one personal exemption for themselves, their spouse, and one for each dependent.
In the 2017 tax year, each personal exemption was an effective $4,100 tax deduction. And there was no limit to the number of personal exemptions that could be claimed. For example, a married couple with six dependent children could claim eight personal exemptions. You can see how the higher standard deduction may not exactly be a gift — especially for larger families.