The Distributional Burden of Federal Excise Taxes

The federal tax system imposes a number of excise taxes on goods and services such as gasoline, alcohol, tobacco, air travel, and health care. In fiscal year 2014, the federal government raised $93.4 billion or 0.5 percent of GDP from excise taxes, accounting for about 3 percent of total federal revenue. This report provides a brief summary of federal excise taxes and presents the methodology the Tax Policy Center uses to estimate the incidence of excise taxes in our distributional tables.