The Bush Tax Cuts: Are Alaskans Better Off?
29 October 2006Our colleagues at Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) have recently issued another of their Alaska-specific analyses of the consequences of this administration’s tax cuts on Alaskan families…
Over the past six years, President George W. Bush and his allies in Congress have enacted multiple rounds of major tax cuts, including special tax breaks for capital gains and dividends, reductions in personal income tax rates, estate tax cuts and an array of corporate tax loopholes. This issue brief summarizes the effects of the Bush tax cuts on Alaskans at different income levels.
There are two key findings: First of all, the tax breaks enacted since 2001 are heavily skewed towards the very wealthiest few. Second, because the tax cuts are being paid for with borrowed money, the cost of paying the added national debt more than wipes out any benefits from the tax cuts for 99 percent of Alaskans. Only the best-off one percent of Alaskans are net winners.
- Over the 2001-2010 period, the wealthiest one percent of Alaskans, who have an average income of $765,700 in 2006, will receive 20.1 percent of the tax cuts.
- The total 10-year average tax cut for this wealthiest group is $271,608, an average of $27,161 per year.
- In contrast, the poorest 60 percent will get only 21.0 percent of the tax cuts, with an average annual tax cut over the 10 years of only $517.
All the Alaskan-specific information is available in greater detail as a two-page fact sheet on the CTJ website.
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