What are the largest tax expenditures? Q.What are the largest tax expenditures? A.Tax expenditures make up a substantial part of the federal budget. Some of them are larger than the entire budgets of the programs or departments that spend money for the same or related purposes. For example, the value of the tax breaks for homeownership, although reduced by the 2017 tax act, still exceeds total spending by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Read more about What are the largest tax expenditures?
How did the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act affect tax expenditures? Q.How did the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act affect tax expenditures? A.The TCJA reduced some tax expenditure provisions, eliminated others, and introduced and expanded still others. In addition to these direct changes in tax expenditure provisions, an increase in the standard deduction and lower individual and corporate tax rates reduced the number of taxpayers using tax expenditure provisions and the value of the tax benefits they receive. Read more about How did the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act affect tax expenditures?
How does the federal government spend its money? Q.How does the federal government spend its money? A.Federal spending totaled $6.3 trillion in 2023. About 66 percent of the total was for mandatory programs not subject to regular budget review, while nearly 26 percent covered discretionary programs for which Congress must regularly appropriate funds. Eight percent went for interest on government debt (figure 1). Read more about How does the federal government spend its money?