Tax Cuts - How would your taxes change under the McCain or Obama tax plans?

Both presidential candidates have made a lot of claims about what they would do - and what their opponent would do - to your taxes. Fortunately, the tax plans of both candidates have now been assessed by the non-partisan Tax Policy Center. To its credit, this assessment includes proposed changes in individual income taxes, capital gains taxes, and corporate income taxes (which are eventually passed on to consumers). Unfortunately, the reports and charts can get a bit dense. This information is too important to be lost in translation, so the calculator below will show you how the candidates' proposed tax changes would affect your family.
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Filing Status Number of dependent
children in your family		 Choose the value closest to your Adjusted Gross Income (AGI)   Make your predictions
I think Obama will
Filing status 'Elderly' applies to Heads of Households at least 65 years old.
Note that the calculator won't show you the results unless you make predictions first. 		AGI is your total income minus a number of so-called ""above the line"" deductions (health savings accounts, moving expenses, IRA contributions, student loan interest). The standard deduction and itemized deductions (like mortgage interest) are NOT subtracted when calculating your AGI.   I think McCain will

What do YOU think would happen to your taxes (including personal income, capital gains and corporate taxes passed on to you as a consumer)?

Results Individual
Income Tax		 Impact of
Corporate
Income Tax		 Total   change as a %
of your AGI		 How did your prediction turn out?
Obama
McCain

These estimates are based on analysis from the non-partisan Tax Policy Center - a joint effort of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution. The results are not for your exact tax situation, but your family must fall somewhere close to one of the 350 possible categories (5 filing statuses by 5 family sizes by 14 income groups). That is certainly a lot better than the 1-2 situations highlighted by most stump speeches - or even the 5-7 categories that make their way into a newspaper graphic (even a good table like this from the Washington Post). If you want full details on the analysis methodology, you'll need to consult the Tax Policy Center's original report. You can validate the above calculator against each of the TPC's tables: Single, Married, Elderly.

This site has no relation to either campaign, the Tax Policy Center or any other organization whatsoever.