Higher Deficits Seen in Romney’s Tax Plan, and His Rivals’, Too

By MICHAEL COOPER and DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI
NYT

When Mitt Romney suggested this week that he pays a lower tax rate than most wealthy Americans do, he refocused attention on his tax proposals — which, like those of his major Republican rivals, would largely cut taxes for the rich while driving down tax collections and widening the nation’s deficit.

Mr. Romney’s tax plan — which calls for permanently extending the Bush administration’s tax cuts, reducing the corporate income tax rate and eliminating the estate tax — would cut the taxes of people earning more than a million dollars a year by an average of $295,874, according to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan research group.

Since Mr. Romney would also allow some of President Obama’s tax cuts to expire, his plan would effectively raise taxes on some people earning less than $40,000 a year. The Romney tax plan would add to the deficit by reducing federal revenues by $600 billion in 2015, a 16 percent cut, the center found.

Some of Mr. Romney’s rivals for the Republican presidential nomination are proposing tax cuts that would widen the deficit even more — which was the point that Mr. Romney was trying to make on Tuesday in South Carolina when he renewed attention to his personal wealth by noting that his effective tax rate is “probably closer to the 15 percent rate than anything.”

(More here.)