Economic Growth And Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 - EGTRRA

The Economic Growth And Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (EGTRRA for short) was a big tax overhaul passed during the Bush-the-Younger’s presidential administration. If “EGTRRA” isn’t floating your boat, you can just call it—like many do—the “Bush tax cuts.”

So what did the Bush tax cuts...cut? It put a ceiling on the estate tax, lowered capital gains tax on property or stock help more then five years, and lowered income tax brackets for everyone—like it was a limbo bar at a party. How low can you go?

For some context, EGTRRA was passed when the US was in a rare time of budget surplus, before a lot of stuff hit the fan (the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the Great Recession of 2008). The US now has a huuuuge deficit. Yep.

EGTRRA did more than cut things, though. It also allowed those over 50 to make higher retirement account contributions, and created new employee-sponsored retirement programs (the Sidecar IRA, the Roth 401(k), and the Roth 403(b)...the OG Roth IRA was already invented, just so ya know).

One thing to know about EGTRRA was that it was supposed to be temporary, i.e. to “sunset,” meaning everything would go back to normal in 2011. But instead, Congress extended the Bush tax cuts in 2010. And then taxes were lowered yet again under the Trump admin, at a time when the US was right under the trillion-dollar-deficit mark. The deficit is predicted to skyrocket into the trillions, given that the US is spending a lot more money than it’s raking in.