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Eliminate Itemized Deductions

Summary: We estimate the budgetary, economic and distributional effects of eliminating all Schedule-A itemized deductions. The policy would be enacted on January 1st, 2021.

Table 1. Conventional Budget Estimate, FY2021-2030

Billions of Dollars, Change from Current-Law Baseline

Policy 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 2021-2030
Eliminate all itemized deductions 67 93 122 153 186 222 260 302 346 394 2,146

Table 2. Dynamic Macroeconomic Effects

Percent Change from Baseline

Year GDP Capital stock Labor income Hours worked Consumption
2030 0.1% 0.7% 0.1% -0.2% -0.1%
2040 0.8% 2.4% 0.8% 0.0% 0.0%
2050 2.3% 6.5% 2.3% 0.3% 0.4%

Note: Consistent with empirical evidence, the projections above assume that the U.S. economy is 40 percent open and 60 percent closed. Specifically, 40 percent of new government debt is purchased by foreigners.

Table 3. Distribution of Policy Change by Annual Income Categories, Relative to Current-Law Baseline

Income group Average tax change Share with a tax increase Percent change in after tax income Share of tax change Share of federal taxes paid Change in share of federal taxes paid
Bottom quintile $0 1% 0.0% 0% 0% 0.0%
Second quintile $10 2% 0.0% 1% 1% 0.0%
Middle quintile $80 8% -0.2% 4% 8% -0.1%
Fourth quintile $295 17% -0.4% 11% 17% -0.2%
80-90% $625 29% -0.5% 10% 14% -0.1%
90-95% $1,345 44% -0.7% 10% 11% 0.0%
95-99% $2,930 55% -1.0% 17% 18% 0.0%
99-99.9% $12,760 68% -1.5% 17% 15% 0.0%
Top 0.1% $204,015 78% -2.8% 31% 17% 0.5%