Skip to main content
  • Experts
  • Events
  • Briefing Book
  • Resources
  • About
  • Contact
  • Support
  • Fiscal Facts
Twitter
Facebook
Logo Site
  • Topics
    • Individual Taxes
    • Business Taxes
    • Federal Budget and Economy
    • State and Local Issues
    • Campaigns, Proposals, and Reforms
  • TaxVox Blog
  • Research & Commentary
  • Laws & Proposals
  • Model Estimates
  • Statistics
  • Features
Research report

Distributional Effects of Individual Income Tax Expenditures: An Update

Eric Toder, Daniel Berger, Yifan Powers
September 26, 2016
Download PDFPrint
Share

Primary tasks

  • Overview(active tab)
  • Full Report

Abstract

This paper provides estimates of the total cost of non-business tax expenditures claimed on individual tax returns, taking account of interactions among provisions, and of their distributional effects among income groups. We estimate that non-business tax expenditures reduced tax liability by $1.17 trillion in 2015. Interactions among provisions make the revenue cost of all tax expenditures about 6 percent larger than the sum of the costs of the separate provisions. We also find that tax expenditures, on average, reduce taxes as a share of income more for upper-income than for lower-income taxpayers. Tax expenditures reduce tax liability by over 13.4 percent of income for taxpayers in the top 1 percent of the income distribution and by much smaller amounts in other income groups.

Research Area

Individual Taxes Tax expenditures (individual)
To reuse content from the Tax Policy Center, visit copyright.com, search for the publications, choose from a list of licenses, and complete the transaction.

Meet the Experts

  • Eric Toder
    Institute Fellow and Codirector, Tax Policy Center
  • Daniel Berger
  • Yifan Powers
Research report

New Evidence on The Effect of The TCJA On the Housing Market

Robert McClelland, Livia Mucciolo, Safia Sayed
March 30, 2022
  • Donate Today
  • Topics
  • TaxVox Blog
  • Research & Commentary
  • Laws & Proposals
  • Model Estimates
  • Statistics
  • Privacy Policy
  • Newsletters
Twitter
Facebook
  • © Urban Institute, Brookings Institution, and individual authors, 2022.