CBO examined how the benefits from major tax expenditures in the individual income tax and payroll tax systems were distributed among households in different income groups in 2019. The agency estimates that those tax expenditures totaled about $1.2 trillion, or 5.8 percent of gross domestic product, and accounted for roughly three-quarters of the total budgetary effects of all tax expenditures that year. The size and distribution of benefits across the income scale varied considerably among each of the major tax expenditures in 2019.

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