The ‘Winners’ and ‘Losers’: An Analysis of the Bush Tax Advisory Panel’s Proposals

By the NYSSCPA's Tax Policy Subcommittee

In the wake of the release of the report of the President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform (Simple, Fair, and Pro-Growth: Proposals to Fix America’s Tax System), the NYSSCPA’s Tax Policy Subcommittee of the Tax Division Oversight Committee decided to study the proposals in detail and prepare an analysis of how taxpayers in different financial situations would be affected. The article includes case studies comparing current law to the Panel’s two proposals: the Simplified Income Tax Plan (SITP) and the Growth and Investment Tax Plan (GITP). Although, in the aggregate, the proposals met the President’s goals—maintaining current progressivity and revenue levels while retaining recent tax cuts for dividend income and long-term capital gains as well as eliminating the AMT—there will inevitably be, as with any major tax reform, “winners” and “losers,” based upon individual circumstances.

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Perspectives

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