Treasury Press Release Confirms CTJ Estimates of Bush Plan's Impact - But Leaves out Critical Details

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An April 24, 2001 press release from the Bush Treasury Department confirms previous estimates by Citizens for Tax Justice about the aggregate effects of the Bush tax proposals on various demographic groups. But the Bush release fails to tell average taxpayers what the Bush plan will actually mean for them.

Treasury offers summary statistics about the fully-phased-in size of the Bush income tax cuts and the number of taxpayers who would receive tax reductions--for all taxpayers and selected subgroups, including families with children, single parents, and seniors. Treasury's findings are similar to figures released by CTJ earlier this year.

Unlike CTJ's estimates, however, Treasury does not provide information about the large number of taxpayers who would receive no benefit from the Bush tax proposals. Treasury also fails to provide information on the median, or typical, tax cuts under the Bush plan for taxpayers in the various demographic groups.

• For example, while Treasury says that 13 million seniors would get an average income tax cut of $892 each under the Bush plan, it fails to note that almost half of all seniors would get nothing, and that the typical senior would get a tax cut of only $150.
• Likewise, Treasury says that 8 million "single moms" would get a tax cut of $712, but does not disclose that 48 percent of single parents would get nothing, and that the median tax cut for single parents would be only $326.