Cruz in ballpark on tax cut

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz touted his support for the Republican-backed tax bill in his second debate against Democratic U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke.

After saying that previous tax cuts have led to increases in revenue, such as those under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, Cruz said, “This time with that tax cut we’re seeing the result, and to date, federal tax revenues have gone up. Federal tax revenues are higher this year than they are last year without the tax cut.”

Is that correct?

Tax collection data

If you look at the sheer number of dollars collected, irrespective of inflation and without regard to the size of the overall economy or other factors, taxes went up very slightly.

Specifically, new federal data show that tax revenues rose between fiscal year 2017 and fiscal year 2018 by 0.4 percent. (Federal fiscal years run from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30.) The rise is smaller than almost every previous year since World War II, except for a handful of years in which tax revenues declined, largely due to recessions.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a group that favors shrinking the federal deficit, found the small increase in nominal dollars collected disappears once you add other factors.

If you adjust for inflation, the group found, tax revenues fell by 1.6 percent. (This calculation is for the first 11 months of fiscal 2018, compared to the first 11 of 2017. The group had not calculated the data for the full year by our publication time, but the differences from adding the 12th month should be minor.)

You can also look at tax revenues as a percentage of gross domestic product — essentially, factoring in economic growth which should, in turn, generate tax revenues. In this case, GDP growth didn’t boost tax revenues proportionately — this measure fell by 4.1 percent over the first 11 months of the fiscal year.

Finally, we can look at actual tax collections relative to the expectations of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office in June 2017, which was several months before the law passed. CBO’s projection of $3.531 trillion in tax collections was based on population growth, inflation, wage growth, and other factors. By this standard, tax revenue fell short of the projection by 5.7 percent.

Each of these measurements undercut Cruz’s argument that tax revenues increased.

“Tax revenues naturally grow with a growing economy,” said Donald Marron, a fellow at the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center. “The economy has been doing well. Revenues, however, haven’t grown as much. So the tax cuts reduced revenues relative to what they would have been, just as every serious analyst predicted.”

New tax law’s affect on revenue?

Cruz portrayed a direct relationship: The tax law was passed and revenue went up. But that’s questionable.

We can probe this question by separating out the months in which the old tax law prevailed and looking only at the months in which the new tax law was the primary factor shaping tax payments.

Three months in fiscal 2018 were governed by the old law — October, November and December. Another two months — March and April — were governed by the new law, but were dominated by tax payments for income generated in 2017, and thus were predominantly shaped by the old law. A final month, September, had not produced final data by the time of our article.

That leaves six months in which it was the new law that shaped tax payments to the government — January, February, May, June, July and August.

And if you compare the cumulative collections for those six months in 2017 and 2018, tax collections actually declined by 3.8 percent between 2017 (when the old law was in force) and 2018 (when the new law was in force).

Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier emphasized Cruz was correct about the calculation using nominal dollars, “In fact, individual tax revenues this year are $96 billion higher than last year, even after cutting individual taxes,” she said.

Our ruling

Cruz said with the GOP-backed tax cut, “we’re seeing the result, and to date, federal tax revenues have gone up.”

They have gone up by less than half of 1 percent in nominal dollars, one of the weakest increases since the end of World War II. They have fallen if you factor in inflation, growth in the economy or prior projections for tax collections.

Cruz’s suggestion the new tax law caused the nominal increase is dubious, since in the months when that new law was the primary mover of tax payments, collections actually fell by 3.8 percent.

We rate his statement Half True.