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Tax Credits for Working Families: the New American Social Policy

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Tax Credits for Working Families: the New American Social Policy ______________________________________________________________________________ TAX CREDITS FOR WORKING FAMILIES: THE NEW AMERICAN SOCIAL POLICY Daniel P. Gitterman Kendra Davenport Cotton University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Christopher Howard College of William and Mary A Discussion Paper Prepared for The Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy August 2003 ______________________________________________________________________________ THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION CENTER ON URBAN AND METROPOLITAN POLICY SUMMARY OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS * DISCUSSION PAPERS/RESEARCH BRIEFS 2003 Shopping the City: Real Estate Finance and Urban Retail Development Banking the Poor (Working Paper) The Earned Income Tax Credit as an Instrument of Housing Policy Paying for Prosperity: Impact Fees and Job Growth Civic Infrastructure and the Financing of Community Development Stunning Progress, Hidden Problems: The Dramatic Decline of Concentrated Poverty in the 1990s The State Role in Urban Land Development City Fiscal Structures and Land Development What the IT Revolution Means for Regional Economic Development Is Home Rule the Answer? Clarifying the Influence of Dillon’s Rule on Growth Management 2002 Growth in the Heartland: Challenges and Opportunities for Missouri Seizing City Assets: Ten Steps to Urban Land Reform Vacant-Property Policy and Practice: Baltimore and Philadelphia Calling 211: Enhancing the Washington Region’s Safety Net After 9/11 Holding the Line: Urban Containment in the United States Beyond Merger: A Competitive Vision for the Regional City of Louisville The Importance of Place in Welfare Reform: Common Challenges for Central Cities and Remote Rural Areas Banking on Technology: Expanding Financial Markets and Economic Opportunity Transportation Oriented Development: Moving from Rhetoric to Reality Signs of Life: The Growth of the Biotechnology Centers in the U.S. Transitional Jobs: A Next Step in Welfare to Work Policy Valuing America’s First Suburbs: A Policy Agenda for Older Suburbs in the Midwest Open Space Protection: Conservation Meets Growth Management ii Housing Strategies to Strengthen Welfare Policy and Support Working Families Creating a Scorecard for the CRA Service Test: Strengthening Banking Services Under the Community Reinvestment Act The Link Between Growth Management and Housing Affordability: The Academic Evidence What Cities Need from Welfare Reform Reauthorization Growth Without Growth: An Alternative Economic Development Goal for Metropolitan Areas The Potential Impacts of Recession and Terrorism on U.S.Cities TREND SURVEYS 2003 At Home in the Nation’s Capital: Immigrant Trends in Metropolitan Washington Welfare, Working Families and Reauthorization: Mayor’s Views Beyond Edge City: Office Sprawl in South Florida Boomers and Seniors in the Suburbs: Aging Patterns in Census 2000 Rewarding Work Through the Tax Code: The Power and Potential of the Earned Income Tax Credit in 27 Cities and Rural Areas 2002 Modest Progress: The Narrowing Spatial Mismatch Between Blacks and Jobs in the 1990s Smart Growth: The Future of the American Metropolis Living on the Edge: Decentralization Within Cities in the 1990s Timing Out: Long-Term Welfare Caseloads in Large Cities and Counties A Decade of Mixed Blessings: Urban and Suburban Poverty in Census 2000 Latino Growth in Metropolitan America: Changing Patterns, New Locations Demographic Change in Medium-Sized Cities: Evidence from the 2000 Census The Price of Paying Taxes: How Tax Preparation and Refund Loan Fees Erode the Benefits of the EITC The Importance of Housing Benefits to Housing Success Left Behind in the Labor Market: Recent Employment Trends Among Young Black Men City Families and Suburban Singles: An Emerging Household Story from Census 2000 iii TRANSPORTATION REFORM SERIES The Mobility Needs of Older Americans: Implications for Transportation Reauthorization The Long Journey to Work: A Federal Transportation Policy for Working Familes Improving Efficiency and Equity in Transportation Finance Fueling Transportation Finance: A Primer on the Gas Tax Slanted Pavement: How Ohio’s Highway Spending Shortchanges Cities and Suburbs TEA-21 Reauthorization: Getting Transportation Right for Metropolitan America FORTHCOMING Moving Beyond Boundaries: A Third Way of Shaping Metropolitan Growth Metropolitan Transportation Governance: Suballocation, Devolution, and the Quest for Better Decision Making * Copies of these and previous Brookings urban center publications are available on the web site, www.brookings.edu/urban, or by calling the center at (202) 797-6270. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy thanks the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Fannie Mae Foundation for their generous support of our work on working family investments and policies. The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Alan Berube, Bruce Katz, and Michael Stegman. ABOUT THE AUTHORS Daniel P. Gitterman is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Christopher Howard is the David D. and Carolyn B. Wakefield Associate Professor of Government at the College of William and Mary. He is the author of The Hidden Welfare State: Tax Expenditures and Social Policy in the United States (Princeton University Press 1997). Kendra Davenport Cotton is a PhD student in the Department of Public Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Comments on this paper can be sent directly to Dan Gitterman at [email protected]. v EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In a policy environment averse to direct spending on programs dedicated to income support, a variety of federal tax credits have emerged as key vehicles for providing assistance to low-to- moderate income families. Indeed, the two largest individual income tax credits—the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit (CTC)—will represent over $75 billion in tax expenditures in 2003. Looking for ways to expand the constituency for tax credits to include more “working families” with low-to-middle incomes, this paper reviews the current regime of tax credits, their design, and the political dynamics behind their appeal and finds that: • Tax credits for working families have expanded rapidly in recent years. Voter attitudes, congressional partisanship, budgetary rules, and shifting viewpoints among public finance experts have all helped fuel a rise in tax expenditures. However, large tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 will likely constrain near-term efforts at the federal level to expand income support for working families. • Tax expenditures are more significant for lower-income and higher-income families than for middle-income families. Lower-income families benefit from a number of income- targeted credits , while upper-income families benefit from deductions for mortgage interest and state and local taxes, as well as the exclusion of employer-paid benefits from income. Those families in the middle can be said to face a “middle-class parent penalty.” • Tax credits designed to provide income security for working families have grown much larger than other types of credits. While the EITC and CTC combined provided over $75 billion to working families in 2003, tax credits tied to the consumption of particular goods and services totaled only $11.6 billion, and general business tax credits designed to benefit low-income workers and communities totaled only $5.4 billion. • A new income security tax credit or a combination of the existing EITC and CTC could broaden support for, and understanding of, federal investments in working families. Such a credit should be available to working families with up to $75,000 in adjusted gross income. A combined credit, seamless for taxpayers applying for it, would also reduce errors in the EITC program by reducing complexity. Though some might argue that a combined tax credit could dilute support for separate existing programs, a streamlined credit for low-to-middle income working families seems one of the few politically viable ways to expand support for these families in a tight budget environment. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................... 1 II. BACKGROUND......................................................................................................... 2 III. THE POLITICS OF SOCIAL POLICY IN THE TAX CODE ................................................. 7 IV. A BRIEF REVIEW OF FEDERAL INCOME TAX CREDITS FOR WORKING FAMILIES ........ 13 V. COMPARING TAX CREDITS FOR WORKING FAMILIES – INCOME SUPPORT VS. CONSUMPTION, AND INDIVIDUAL VS. GENERAL BUSINESS ....................................... 27 VI. A WORKING FAMILIES TAX CREDIT FOR LOW-TO-MIDDLE-INCOME FAMILIES ........... 31 APPENDIX A. ESTIMATING FEDERAL TAX CREDIT EXPENDITURES ....................................... 35 APPENDIX B. SOCIAL POLICY-RELATED GENERAL BUSINESS TAX CREDITS ......................... 37 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................... 47 vii TAX CREDITS FOR WORKING FAMILIES: THE NEW AMERICAN SOCIAL POLICY I. INTRODUCTION In recent years, some analysts have criticized American social policy for slighting working individuals and families (Skocpol 2000; Graetz and Mashaw 1999). This reinforces an existing perception that the federal government assists only the poorest Americans at the margins of the labor market, as well as elderly Americans who have
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