WASHINGTON – Herman Cain's 9-9-9 tax plan would give every American making more than $1 million an average tax cut of $455,000, according to a new independent analysis.
All Americans with incomes above $200,000 would get tax cuts under the Republican presidential candidate's dramatic proposal, according to the analysis by the Tax Policy Center, a joint effort of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, both respected center-left policy-research centers.
At the same time, those with incomes below $200,000 – 84 percent of taxpayers – would see their taxes increase under the Cain plan, according to the analysis, which is the first to look at precisely what would happen to different incomes under the proposal.
Cain's 9-9-9 plan has captured the imagination of many Republicans and fed his meteoric rise to the top tier in polls on the contest for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. He proposes to replace all federal taxes with a 9 percent flat tax on personal income, a 9 percent flat tax on corporate income, and a 9 percent national sales tax.
He has been vague about the proposal's details, and his campaign has refused to answer questions from McClatchy Newspapers.
"We've already had the scoring done," Cain told CNN last week. "We are just trying to clean it up such that when we present it to the public, it won't raise a lot of questions. So we'll have that done within the next week. And we'll make it available."
He insisted that his plan would not hit lower incomes.
The Tax Policy Center found a different result. It based its analysis on Cain's public comments and documents from Fiscal Associates, a firm that analyzed the plan for Cain.
The study found that high incomes would get tax cuts from the 9 percent flat tax. The wealthy now pay a 35 percent marginal rate on their income above $379,150.
Those with cash incomes between $200,000 and $500,000 would get an average tax cut of $11,155.
Those with cash incomes between $500,000 and $1 million would get an average tax cut of $59,489.
And those with incomes above $1 million would get the average tax cut of $455,247.
Tax increases would fall on all lower incomes, with the heaviest burden on the middle class, the Tax Policy Center found.
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