Examined from this vantage point, the data appeared more problematic for the administration's effort to combat Democratic assertions that the Bush tax cut plan overwhelmingly benefits the richest Americans. The top 1 percent of taxpayers already pay about 35 percent of all income taxes, meaning any broad-based tax cut would give them most of the tax cut dollars. But this has presented a political problem for the administration. That range is so broad that it includes roughly the bottom two quintiles of previous Treasury distributional reports. The effect is to make the tax cut appear more evenly distributed among income groups.
People generally know what income level they are in, rather than what quintile level they are in.
One table missing in yesterday's report that generally is included in Treasury distributional reports is percentage change in after-tax income. Experts say the Treasury Department was able to reach that conclusion because Bush lowers overall tax rates but does not adjust the tax rates for the alternative minimum tax, which is aimed at wealthy taxpayers. Treasury career staff previously have calculated that about 65 percent of the benefits from repeal of the estate tax would go to the top 1 percent.