TPC Baseline Definitions

Current law refers to the law currently scheduled for a given year — that is, the law that will prevail if Congress does not act to change it. The definition of current law will typically change when Congress enacts a new tax law. For instance, in 2012, the individual income tax rates scheduled for 2013 under current law were 15, 28, 31, 36, and 39.6 percent. Now, however, the tax rates under 2013 current law are 10, 15, 25, 28, 33, 35, and 39.6 percent because of changes made by the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (ATRA).

Prior to the passage of ATRA, TPC typically analyzed proposals against both current law and an alternate baseline, current policy. Current policy generally assumed that Congress would extend tax provisions that were set to expire, or "sunset", under current law. Because ATRA dramatically reduced the number of temporary provisions in the tax code, TPC no longer uses a current policy baseline.

The following links to a table containing a non-exhaustive list of tax law parameters assumed for the current law baseline TPC uses to develop revenue and distributional estimates. It displays the baseline parameters we use for model estimates posted after January 2, 2013, as well as links to Excel and PDF files showing the baseline parameters used for estimates created during earlier periods.

Current Policy Parameters
Used Before January 2, 2013
Current Policy Parameters
Side-by-Side Current Law and Current Policy Parameters