President Bush's health insurance proposals for the tax code would increase tax revenues by $526 billion through 2017, according to a preliminary estimate from the Joint Committee on Taxation that "is stunningly different from the administration's estimates as well as those from other independent analysts," the AP/San Francisco Chronicle reports.
The Joint Committee on Taxation's analysis found that the president's plans initially would reduce federal revenue if they went into effect in 2009 as Bush has proposed. Because health insurance premium rates are expected to rise at a faster rate than the standard deduction and the tax preference for employer-provided coverage would be capped at the level of the standard deduction, the committee projected that the proposal would bring in more tax revenue in later years after implementation. Tax revenue would increase beginning in 2011, and annual revenue increases would reach $148 billion by 2017, according to the analysis. A separate analysis by the Lewin Group estimated that the plan would reduce taxes by $108.5 billion through 2017.