John Kerry's position on:

Taxation &endash; As promised in the election of 2000, the Bush administration has lowered taxes not once, but twice &endash; once in June 2001, the second time on May 28, 2003. These tax cuts included the doubled child tax credit ($1,000 per child), the expanded dependent care credit ($3,000 per dependent up to $6,000), marriage penalty cuts, the earned income credit expansion for married joint filers, and the reduction in marginal tax rates from 39.6 percent to 35 percent, 36 percent to 33 percent, 31 percent to 28 percent, and 28 percent to 25 percent. link

Description of Candidate's Position: Kerry supports the President as far as tax cuts for middle-income workers, concurring that those cuts should be permanent. However, the Kerry plan would repeal the Bush tax cuts for those making $200,000 or more. The Kerry campaign also intends to provide an immediate tax break for small businesses and family farms by raising the estate tax exemption to $4 million per couple and $10 million per couple for a family-owned business or farm. Additionally, according to Business Week Kerry vows to eliminate tax provisions that he contends gives companies an $8 billion annual subsidy to move jobs offshore. According to the Heritage Fundation, a conservative think tank, the rollback in taxes will generate $686 billion in revenues over the next 10 years.

Quotation from the Candidate: "This is the man who promised his tax cuts would create 6 million new jobs. Today, three tax cuts later, we've lost a million -- seven million jobs short of his prediction... We will close the tax loopholes that reward companies for shipping jobs overseas. Instead, we're going to use that revenue to reward companies that create and keep good jobs here in the United States of America. Under my plan, we'll cut the corporate tax rate by five percent, giving 99 percent of businesses a tax break." &endash; From a speech to the Detroit Economic Club, Sept. 15, 2004.

"I am going to ask America's wealthiest people &endash; those making over $200,000 a year &endash; to pay the same fair share they paid under Bill Clinton. Back then the rich got richer &endash; but everyone else did too. By rolling back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest among us, we can start to restore fiscal responsibility and invest in education and health care for our people." link

Assessment of the Proposal:

Positive: The Kerry plan will make it tougher on American businesses who outsource. According to the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan economic and social policy research organization, Kerry says that he will repeal the Bush tax cuts for households with incomes over $200,000, but not the middle-class tax cuts, which he intends to make permanent. Kerry has also proposed a new refundable tax credit for higher education expenses, and changes to the estate tax.

Negative: According to a report from William Beach of the Heritage Foundation, "the annual rate of non-farm employment growth will be consistently below-forecast each quarter for the 10 years following January of 2005." Beach goes on to say that the Kerry plan will have 225,000 fewer jobs created per year due to the Kerry tax plan than in the baseline scenario, and by 2013 there will be 404,000 fewer jobs created per quarter. Conversely, Heritage suggests that the Bush plan will likely enjoy 288,000 more jobs by 2009 than under the current-law baseline.

Comparison: While Kerry is in favor of making tax cuts for the middle class permanent, Bush is in favor of making tax cuts permanent for all Americans. Bush argues his tax plans in 2001 and 2003 have "reduced tax rates for everyone who pays taxes, phased out the death tax, increased the child tax credit, reduced the marriage penalty, and brought about a new 10 percent tax bracket ('01) and increased its' size ('03)."

Link to Bush on taxes.