Disclosures, Disclaimers, Releases, and Methods
Send Link/Spreadsheet to friends, blogs, newspapers, representatives. If you agree or disagree with the tax distributions, let people know. Taxes are a necessary part of government. But they should be done in a way that supports important national priorities. Please forward the link to others.
Goal. This is provided to help voters understand the planned tax changes. As opposed to listening to conflicting claims/attacks by the candidates, you can figure out what it really means for you. This provides you the actual data. Please share this link with friends. You may have sent emails about what candidates said/did, cartoons, or perhaps video links. By sending this link, you give people facts about how the candidates will really change their taxes. What does each plan mean for your take-home pay? Consider how others will fare.
Vote Informed on Tuesday, November 4.
Disclaimers. This information is provided based on published reports and is an attempt to quantify the effects We are not connected with the US government or any political party. This is not to be interpreted as tax advice.
Version 0.1 October 22, 2008. This is the first released draft version. We will continue to improve the utility and accuracy of the spreadsheet and will post updates from time to time.
Non Partisan listing. We have endeavored to be non-partisan, taking sources from non-partisan groups (e.g., US government, Tax Policy Center) to create the figures. We have tried to use graphics and details in a balanced method to clearly communicate the relationships in the data.
The Organization for an Informed America is a non-partisan citizen organization. It seeks to provide information that voters can use to quickly understand how government policies can affect them based on quantitative facts rather than politicians' claims. The models provide a web interface with simple tools to quantify how government policies would effect your life and others you care about. We have a very small volunteer staff and it may take time to examine the emails.
Who we are. We are a group of citizens who feel that the candidates need to stop making vague claims and be concrete on what it means for citizens. We heard the debates on October 4 and felt we needed to find out the accurate numbers rather than vague promises. We wanted to check if the cuts were revenue neutral and whether people at different income levels would gain or lose. We hope others will follow this approach for other topics.
Security. This information is distributed in both internet website (www.mytaxcut.us) and via a downloadable spreadsheet. The spreadsheet is write-protected so it can not be altered. This is a precaution against others altering the data or adding viruses to the code. The spreadsheet does not contain any macros that collect data or store any data. If you click the "Send Your Plan" button on the spreadsheet, it will copy the key data in a text line that can be entered at the web site without coding where it came from. The web site stores no data on visitors that would allow tracking information. The web site code is in open Java and can be inspected by any programmer. To have the spreadsheet perform actions, it was necessary to use macros in the spreadsheet. No data is sent in the spreadsheet. We only accept data via the internet without recording the source or an email address.
Permissions. The goal of this is to get people to start talking and have a more informed debate. Material can copied and used as long as the web site is cited in the report. Please try to be fair and balanced copying full tables and graphs not just the ones that support one party.
How you can help. First by examining this material and taking the time to ask what should the tax policy be at different income levels and then communicating the take-home message to people you know and fowarding links to this material. If you would like to contribute to this effort, send your contact information to mytaxcut.us@gmail.com with "Volunteer" in the subject line and the type of activity you might like to do to help. We would like to expand this approach perhaps addressing other issues such as healthcare. The types of help we need include: searching the web for related information; creating educational materials for individudals, discussion and classroom use; organinzing discussion groups; editing Wickipedia pages, distributing information to news sources; creating videos or powerpoint presentations that highlight key points; creating spread sheet and web applets for building understanding; contacting political leaders; tracking collected data within regions; monitoring message boards, etc. Helping inform voters is a way to provide service and improve our country.
Reporter Inquires. Send emails to mytaxcut.us@gmail.com and put in the subject line "Media". We will seek to get to those within a day.
Corrections and suggestions. Send us corrections or suggestions by placing "Correction" or "Suggestion" in the subject header and email to mytaxcut.us@gmail.com
Use for schools. This site provides information that can be used in civics, political science, and economics and math classes. Few people know what the taxes are that people really pay and how each group will be effected with different tax philosophies. Teachers can have students create their own plans and then download the numbers and show how their class matches the candidates' plans. You can copy data out of all the spreadsheet cells. Watch sight for school materials.
Methods.The methods involved finding published reports about the tax plans based on the reports by the Tax Policy Center. There were two key reports: the IRS Tax report of 2006 and The Impact of the Presidential Candidates' Tax Proposals on Effective Marginal Tax Rates by Katherine Lim and Jeffrey Rohaly, September 30, 2008, of the Urban Institute and the Brooking Institution. This was supplemented and summarized by Roberton Williams and Howard Gleckman. The full report was "An Updated Analysis of the 2008 Presidential Candidates' Tax Plans": Revised August 15, 2008 by Len Burman, Surachai Khitatrakun, Greg Leiserson, Jeff Rohaly, Eric Toder and Bob Williams. In particular, the data table TC 804 here contains data sets T08-0211 and T08-020 that provide the key breakdown of 17 categories of taxpayers at 14 income levels. Our effort has provided a graphic interface for that data set.
The numbers were derived based on Tax Policy Center discussions with the candidates and published reports. MyTaxCut.US is not associated with the Tax Policy Center but does use the numbers they publish. A second source for data for what taxes are actually collected came from the IRS listing of 2006 tax results, contained in downloadabe Table 1.1--Selected Income and Tax Items, by Size and Accumulated Size of Adjusted Gross Income, Tax Year 2006 06in11si.xls that provided key infomration about the total taxable income and taxes paid by various groups. The two data sources used somewhat different income breakpoints in tables. The Tax Policy numbers calculated specific points (e.g., $35,000) whereas the IRS data are for the range of $30,000 to $40,000. The IRS data used 2006 income levels. The Tax Policy Center typically used 2008 numbers, so there are small differences in quintiles and median income points.
By combining the information of actual taxes paid from the IRS and non-partisan review of comments by the candidates and their campaign organizations, one can get a clear picture of the intended and actual results of the proposed policies. Note the Tax Plans Explained illustrates the intended take-home message that appeared after the analysis.
The web page basically provides a data picture of the selected numbers so you can see that they mean for you. It also provides graphical depiction of the effects and different income levels that help show how different groups fare. In the comparison of Design Your Own Tax Plan, we used a family-based comparison ( 2 earners, one dependent child) that represents the most typical tax-payer situation as a comparison group.
Special Thanks. This report relies heavily on the data published by the Tax Policy Center. We appreciate their collection of information to provide a non-partisan portrayal of complex tax issues.