US: One-third of President Bush's tax cuts have gone to the wealthiest 1 per cent of Americans, shifting a greater burden to middle-income taxpayers, according to US congressional analysts.
The report by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and calculations by congressional Democrats based on the CBO findings, have fuelled a debate over the cuts between Mr Bush and his Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry.
Using the CBO's figures, Democrats in Congress said the top 1 per cent, with incomes averaging $1.2 million per year, will receive an average tax cut of $78,460 this year, and have seen their share of the total tax burden fall roughly two percentage points to 20.1 per cent.
In contrast, the report showed that households in the middle 20 per cent, with incomes averaging $57,000 per year, will receive an average cut of $1,090, while their share of the tax burden would move to 10.5 per cent from 10.4 per cent.
The CBO report said about two-thirds of the benefits from the cuts went to households in the top 20 per cent with an average income of $203,740.
People with earnings in the lowest 20 per cent, which averaged $16,620, saw their effective tax rate fall to 5.2 per cent from 6.7 per cent, the CBO said.
But Democrats said that meant their average tax cut was only $250.
Democrats said the CBO calculations, which they requested, confirmed the view of independent tax analysts that the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 have heavily favoured the wealthiest taxpayers.
"It is bad enough that George Bush has no plan to help middle-class families squeezed by declining wages and skyrocketing costs for healthcare, energy and college tuition," said Mr Kerry.
"Now we find that he is deliberately stacking the deck against them. This is the straw that will break the back of middle-class families."
However, Republicans said the CBO numbers showed Mr Bush has provided tax relief for people of all income levels.
Representative Bill Thomas of California, Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, said the report showed Mr Bush's tax cuts "have made the tax code more progressive, and taxpayers across the income spectrum will be saddled with higher tax burdens if the tax cuts are not made permanent".
Mr Bush has said the cuts provided crucial support to the US economy after the September 11th attacks and the three-year decline in U.S. stocks.
However, Mr Kerry, who wants to roll back the cuts for households whose incomes top $200,000 a year, has said the cuts did little for the economy, and helped cause the federal budget to swing from a more than $100 billion surplus in 2001 to a projected deficit exceeding $400 billion this year.