Analysis: Romney tax plan strongly favors the rich (Romney also proposes to raise taxes on the poor)

[Cali_Democrat]

By Brian Montopoli

Mitt Romney's new tax plan strongly favors the wealthiest Americans, offering earners in the top 20 percent an average tax cut of more than $16,000 while raising taxes on the bottom 20 percent of earners, according to an analysis from a non-partisan Washington think tank.

The analysis out Thursday from the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution think tanks, finds that under Romney's plan the bottom 20 percent would see their average federal tax rate increase $149, or 1.3 percent.

The top 20 percent, meanwhile, would see an average tax cut of $16,134 -- a 5.4 percent reduction in their tax rate. The top one percent of earners would see their average tax rate fall by nearly $150,000 per year, and the top 0.1 percent would see a reduction of more than $725,000.

<...>

According to the Tax Policy Center, Romney's plan would add $900 billion to the deficit in 2015, when the changes would go into full effect. The group has also found that the 20 percent tax cut, combined with Romney's proposal to repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax, would add $3 trillion to the deficit over ten years - even if the Bush-era tax cuts and more recent tax cuts are extended. (That part of the analysis looked only at the impact of those two proposals, not Romney's tax plan overall.)

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57389459-503544/analysis-romney-tax-plan-strongly-favors-the-rich/?tag=re1.galleries