We retired Tax Justice Blog in April 2017. For new content on issues related to tax justice, go to www.justtaxesblog.org
The legislation signed into law by President Obama on Wednesday makes permanent 85 percent of the Bush-era income tax cuts and 95 percent of the Bush-era estate tax cut still in effect in 2012. It also directs 18 percent of its income and estate tax cuts to the richest one percent of Americans — and directs an identical 18 percent of the tax cuts to the poorest 60 percent of Americans.
These are some of the findings of two reports from Citizens for Tax Justice. One examines the revenue impacts of the fiscal cliff deal and explains why the White House claims the bill saves $620 billion over ten years even while it is official estimated to reduce revenue by $3.9 trillion over ten years. The report also explains that the law includes a package of provisions known as the “extenders” because they extend several special-interest tax breaks for two years, and that these provisions are likely to be extended again in the future and eventually offset the revenue saved from allowing high-income tax cuts to expire.
The second CTJ report examines the distributional effects of the law. It finds that while the law will give the middle fifth of Americans an average tax cut of $880 this year, which is equal to 2.0 percent of their income. At the same time, the law will give the richest one percent of Americans an average tax cut of $34,190, equal to 2.3 percent of their income.
Read the two reports:
Revenue Impacts of the Fiscal Cliff Deal
Poorest Three-Fifths of Americans Get Just 18% of the Tax Cuts in the Fiscal Cliff Deal
Also see CTJ’s New Year’s Day report: