CRS – The Challenge of Individual Income Tax Reform: An Economic Analysis of Tax Base Broadening. Jane G. Gravelle, Senior Specialist in Economic Policy, Thomas L. Hungerford, Specialist in Public Finance. March 22, 2012
“There are over 200 separate tax expenditures, which are projected to total over $1.1 trillion in FY2014. The revenue loss of all tax expenditures, however, is highly concentrated in a relatively small numberthe largest 20 tax expenditures account for 90% of the total revenue loss of all tax expenditures. This amount is equivalent to 74% of the total FY2014 revenue from individual income taxes. If used for rate reduction alone, eliminating these tax expenditures could allow tax rates to be reduced by around 43%: for example, the top 39.6% tax rate could be reduced to approximately 23%…The analysis in this report suggests there are impediments to base broadening by eliminating or reducing tax expenditures, because they are viewed as serving an important purpose, are important for distributional reasons, are technically difficult to change, or are broadly used by the public and quite popular. Given the barriers to eliminating or reducing most tax expenditures, it may prove difficult to gain more than $100 billion to $150 billion in additional tax revenues through base broadening. This amount could have a significant effect on reducing the FY2014 budget deficitreducing the projected $345 billion deficit by 30% to 43%. This additional tax revenue, however, is equivalent to about 6% to 9% of projected FY2014 individual income tax revenue, and, consequently, would not allow for significant reductions in tax rates (about a one or two percentage point reduction for each bracket).”
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