Over $1 Trillion in Tax Breaks Are Detailed in New Report by Jessica Schieder.
From the post:
Tax breaks cost the federal government approximately $1.13 trillion in fiscal year 2013, according to a new report by the National Priorities Project (NPP). That is just slightly less than all federal discretionary spending in FY 2013 combined.
So, the headline got your attention? It certainly got mine.
But unlike many alarmist headlines (can you say CNN?), this story came with data to back up its statements.
How much data you ask?
Well, from 1974 to present, tax break data, described as:
NPP has created the first time series tax break dataset by obtaining archived budget requests, converting them to electronic format, and standardizing the categories and names over time. We’ve also added several calculations and normalizations to make these data more useful to researchers.
What you will find in this dataset:
- Tax break names, standardized over time
- Tax break categories, standardized over time
- Estimated annual tax break costs (both real dollars and adjusted for inflation)
- Annual tax break costs as a percent change from the previous year
- Annual tax break costs as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
- Annual tax break costs as a percentage of their corresponding category
The full notes and sources, including our methodology and a data dictionary, are here.
The original report: The Big Money in Tax Breaks, Report: Exposing the Big Money in Tax Breaks by Mattea Kramer. Data support by Becky Sweger and Asher Dvir-Djerassi.
Sponsored by the National Priorities Project.
Do your main sources of news distribute relevant data? To enable you to reach your own conclusions?
If not, you should start asking why not?
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