May 6, 2003 04:22 PM | Permalink | 
Most of the $550 billion that the House Ways and Means Committee would borrow to pay for the tax-cut bill it marked up today is targeted to benefit the best-off five percent of Americans. A computer analysis of the plan by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy finds that over the bill’s first four years (when almost all of its 10-year cost would be incurred):
Fifty-two percent of the total tax cuts would go to the best-off five percent of all taxpayers.
In contrast, the bottom 60 percent of taxpayers would get only 9 percent of the tax cuts.
The average four-year tax reduction for the richest one percent over the four years would total $133,557. This tiny but wealthy group would enjoy a third of the tax cuts over the four years. Starting in 2006, the top one percent would get more than half of the bill’s total tax cuts.
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