off the charts
POLICY INSIGHT
BEYOND THE NUMBERS
BEYOND THE NUMBERS
Taken together, the tax and budget bills that the House will vote on tonight are extraordinary in their reach and their potential impact — providing massive new tax cuts to people with incomes over $1 million and the heirs of the wealthiest Americans, and cutting deeply into basic assistance and services for millions of our poorest and most vulnerable people. That the House is debating these bills just before Christmas is all the more striking.
The tax bill would give people with incomes over $1 million an average annual tax cut of $108,500, according to the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. They would benefit from the following.
- An extension of all of President Bush’s tax-rate cuts on their first $1 million in income.
- A repeal of a limit on tax deductions by high-income households that’s scheduled to return on January 1. Although Republican leaders have called recently for limiting tax deductions for high-income households, their bill blocks the limit that’s already in law from applying to anyone, including people over $1 million.
- A tax rate on dividends of just 20 percent.
- A continuation of an extravagant estate-tax break for the wealthiest three of every 1,000 Americans who die, giving these estates an average tax break of $1.1 million each.
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