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Publication Date: July 2008
Publisher: Tax Policy Center
Author(s): Eliza Krigman
Research Area: Banking and finance
Keywords: Taxes, the Budget, and the Economy; Tax Reform; Taxation of Households; Distribution of Taxes and Income
Type: Report
Abstract:
Distributional analysis has long been a central element in discussions of tax policy. However, standard methods of estimating the distributional effects of tax changes omit two potentially important factors: the financing of the tax changes, and the implications of behavioral responses for economic growth, incomes, and well-being. In this paper we reexamine the distributional effects of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts incorporating these two factors. Compared with the standard analysis, this "dynamic distributional analysis" shows that the benefits of these tax cuts were much smaller, on average, and much more skewed toward people with higher incomes.