Orrin Hatch: “The article is written by Roberton Williams of the Tax Policy Center or TPC. TPC is a tax policy think tank that is the…”

“The article is written by Roberton Williams of the Tax Policy Center or TPC. TPC is a tax policy think tank that is the product of two center-left think tanks. The article presents conclusions from a TPC distribution analysis of tax expenditures. The analysis concludes that about two-thirds of tax expenditures benefit the top quintile of households in the study. Viewers on C-SPAN may wonder what a quintile is. It refers to one-fifth of the given population. The TPC analysis is, therefore, measuring the top one-fifth of the population. According to that study, where does that top one-fifth of the population begin? It begins at $123,000 of household income. It should be noted that household income is a bit broader than the adjusted gross income which is the basis of the President's definition. According to TPC, that top quintile earns 55 percent of income and shoulders a huge amount of the Federal tax burden. They say it is 67 percent. Now, perhaps not too surprisingly, TPC finds that tax expenditures for the top quintile approximate that top one-fifth's share of the tax burden. With the exception of the refundable credit tax expenditures, a taxpayer has to pay income tax to benefit from the tax deduction credit or exclusion. Those asserting that tax expenditures are mainly wealthy taxpayer benefits are principally relying on TPC's distribution analysis. If confronted with the TPC data, it seems to me they have four choices.…”