The President’s Jobs and Growth Plan: Helping American Families

The President’s Jobs and Growth Plan: Helping American Families

The President’s Jobs and Growth Package will reduce the tax burden of nearly every American who pays income taxes. It completely eliminates the income tax burden for 3 million American families while making the overall income tax code more – not less – progressive.

Helping Working Families

The President’s plan helps working Americans by focusing tax relief directly at moderate-income families and those with children. The plan:

Accelerates Marriage Penalty relief by increasing the standard deduction and expanding the 15-percent tax bracket for couples in 2003. An estimated 46 million married couples would benefit from this provision;

Raises the Child Tax Credit from $600 to $1,000 per child this year. An estimated 34 million families with children would benefit from this provision; and

Moves several million working Americans into the lower 10-percent tax bracket immediately, allowing them to keep more of each paycheck.

Helping America’s Seniors

The President’s plan would also help America’s seniors make ends meet. The plan:

Eliminates the double taxation of dividends earned by stockholders. More than half of taxable dividends go to America’s seniors; and

Accelerates the rate reduction and marriage penalty relief for America’s seniors.

An estimated 13 million elderly taxpayers would receive an average tax cut of $1,384 under the President’s plan.

Eliminating the Tax Burden for Millions of Moderate-Income Families

Under President Bush’s plan, Americans in the lowest tax brackets receive the largest percentage reduction in their tax burden.

Three million moderate-income families will see their income tax burden eliminated entirely; while

Treasury Department estimates show the share of income taxes paid by high-income Americans will actually rise.

When the Jobs and Growth plan is enacted, high-income Americans will shoulder a larger share of the income tax burden while moderate-income families will see their tax burden go down.

Who Benefits?

A married couple with two children and income of $40,000 will see their taxes reduced by $1,133 (from $1,178 to $45) in 2003, a decline of 96 percent.

An elderly couple with income of $40,000 (of which $2,000 is dividends and $15,000 is Social Security benefits) will see their taxes reduced by $380 (from $930 to $550) in 2003, a decline of 41 percent.

A married couple with one child and income of $40,000 will see their taxes reduced by $732 (from $2,235 to $1,503) in 2003, a decline of 33 percent.

A married couple with two children and income of $60,000 will see their taxes reduced by $900 (from $3,750 to $2,850) in 2003, a decline of 24 percent.

A married couple with two children and income of $75,000 will see their taxes reduced by $1,122 (from $5,817 to $4,695) in 2003, a decline of 19 percent.

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