The Consequences of the Candidates Tax Plans

http://liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=3408

June 13th, 2008 by Ron Chusid

The graph above gives a quick look at who benefits the most from the policies of each candidate. Not surprisingly, those in the lowest quintile get the biggest breaks under Obama’s plan while those in the top one percent get the biggest tax breaks from McCain.

Those results could have been predicted easily. The more interesting question for myself was how the tax plans would affect all us more affluent “elitists” who back Obama. The Republicans will try all sorts of scare tactics to convince the upper middle class to return to voting for them even though in recent years their economic policies have not been of benefit to the upper middle class.

Hilzoy’s analysis helps answer this question, along with a review of the data on pages 22-24:

The cutoffs for these quintiles (in 2008 dollars) are as follows: “20% $19,740, 40% $38,980, 60% $69,490, 80% $117,535, 90% $169,480, 95% $237,040, 99% $619,561, 99.9% $2,832,449.” (p. 24.) It’s worth noting that if you check the table on p. 24, which has more detail than this graph, you can see that people below the top five percent (which starts at $237,040) do not lose after-tax income under Obama’s plan, and people making $237,040-$619,561 lose all of $12 a year, on average. It’s only in the top one percent that people take a sizable hit. But since so much of the Bush tax cuts went to them, that seems fair to me.