What are the Largest Nonbusiness Tax Expenditures?

In this brief we consider the largest nonbusiness tax expenditures in the individual income tax. We provide a description of these provisions, estimates of their cost and the distribution of their tax benefits across income groups, and briefly summarize their effects. We consider tax expenditures for business income in a separate brief. This latter category includes tax benefits people claim on their individual income tax returns from provisions that affect pass-through businesses, such as sole proprietorships, partnerships, and S corporations.

This brief was updated on January 15, 2020, to correct a number in table 5. The OTA total for EITC in fiscal years 2019-22 is $279.8 billion, and was incorrectly cited as $299.8 billion. Corresponding text references and figure 1 were also updated.