Tax Organisation Says The Check Is Not In The Mail For 51 Million American Taxpayers

by Mike Godfrey, Tax-news.com, Washington

14 June 2001

Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ), a public interest research and advocacy organization focusing on federal, state and local tax policies and their impact upon the United States, has claimed that 39 per cent of American taxpayers will not get the full amount of the highly-touted "rebate checks" due to be mailed this summer as a result of the President's recently passed tax bill. According to CTJ this translates into 51 million people who will not receive the full amount of the promised rebate checks.

According to CTJ's analysis 34 million taxpayers (26%) will get no rebate check at all. And 17 million (13%) will only be sent partial rebates, averaging at about half the advertised amounts of $600 for couples, $500 for single parents and $300 for other taxpayers.

CTJ states that although most taxpayers in the bottom 60% of the income scale will get reduced or zero rebates, the tax bill extends the benefits of the rebate to about two million upper-income taxpayers who will not actually benefit from the new 10% rate bracket, due to the Alternative Minimum Tax. 'Like the rest of the Bush tax plan, the rebates have been carefully designed to give as little as possible to those who need the money, and as much as possible to those who don't,' said Robert S McIntyre, director of CTJ.

On a state-by-state basis, the percentage of taxpayers with no or reduced rebates exceeds 50% in Mississippi (52%) and West Virginia (50.5%). Other states among the 10 with the highest percentages of taxpayers with no or reduced rebates include: Louisiana (49%), Montana (49%), Arkansas (48%), Oklahoma (48%), Alabama (47%), Kentucky (45%), New Mexico (45%) and North Dakota (45%).

The full text of CTJ's analysis can be found at: http://www.ctj.org/html/rebate01.htm

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