Study: 53 percent of Jeb Bush’s tax cuts would go to the top 1 percent

Jeb Bush’s tax plan would cut individual income taxes for almost all Americans, but would not do so equally. In fact, according to a new analysis from Citizens for Tax Justice, more than half the dollar value of the tax cuts would go to 1 percent of the population — the richest 1 percent:

It is difficult to structure an across-the-board tax cut that does not have this kind of regressive impact, for the simple reason that rich people pay in the low tax brackets as well as the high ones. Consequently, any tax cut that you give to the middle class is also a tax cut for the rich, but then to make it an across-the-board tax cut you need to add some tax cuts that only rich people get.

In Bush’s case, that regressive structure is exacerbated because he also cuts taxes on investment income, which overwhelmingly flows into the pockets of the highest-income households.

This analysis doesn’t include Bush’s proposed cuts in the corporate income tax or his plan to eliminate the estate tax, the latter of which is very much to the benefit of affluent families.