TPC staff found an error in the preliminary distributional tables and analysis of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) that we released on November 6, 2017.  We pulled back the analysis as soon as we found the error. Our corrected analysis is available here.

The error involved the refundable portion of the child and family tax credit in the proposed legislation. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would replace the existing $1,000 child tax credit with a child and family tax credit equal to $1,600 per qualifying child under age 17 and $300 per taxpayer and nonqualifying child dependent. Similar to present law, the new credit is partially refundable up to $1,000 per qualifying child.

The error caused us to understate the average tax cuts for low- and middle-income taxpayers—particularly in 2018—and overstate the fraction of taxpayers who would face a tax increase. In addition, it caused us to overstate the average tax cuts for certain upper-income taxpayers subject to the phaseout of the credit. The error had an especially large effect on the more detailed TPC distributional tables (e.g., by filing status, by presence of children). Corrected versions of the detailed tables are available here.

TPC is committed to providing the highest-quality information about America’s tax system. However, we know we fell short this time. We appreciate the support that all of you have provided to TPC over the years and we will work hard to meet our high standards going forward.

Note: This blog was updated on November 8, 2017 to reflect TPC’s corrected analysis of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. To see the changes between our original estimates and our corrected estimates, click here.