JCT Estimate on Tax Plan
[EDIT: I dug up my own post; mystery solved. I explain at the end.]
John Cochrane links to the new JCT estimate on the distributional consequences of the tax package. Here’s Cochrane:
Bottom line: No change. Income categories are paying almost exactly the same share of federal taxes as before. Millionaires actually pay a tiny bit larger share in the new bill.
Given the distributional hue and cry, frankly, it is a surprise to me just how tiny — far below measurement errors — the changes are.
Here’s what he means:
I’m actually very surprised myself. Has anybody been tracking this debate carefully? I thought it wasn’t just the Tax Policy Center, but also the JCT, that guys like Krugman were using (a couple of months ago) to show how awful this was?
Did the final version change that much? Or are they measuring different things?
I am not certain that the above includes the estate tax stuff, but I think it does.
EDITED TO ADD: Okay I dug up my old post. Yeah, the very document Krugman used to excoriate the plan, says the same basic thing that Cochrane is referring to above. The difference is that Krugman was looking at the final year, when some of the stuff phases out.
