Table 1 – Taxpayer Renters and Owners of Households (Income Tax Only)
This table illustrates how federal income tax payments are distributed across income levels and housing status, highlighting a critical structural imbalance in the current tax system. The data shows that the first 50% of tax filers—nearly 88 million workers—pay only about 3% of all income taxes, yet this group includes the majority of renters and housing-burdened households. The table also demonstrates that many workers earning $40,000–$100,000 already pay housing costs in rent comparable to a mortgage but remain locked out of homeownership due to down payments, debt ratios, credit rules, and lack of reserves. This table establishes why redirecting income taxes for the first 75% of workers can have a transformative impact on housing affordability without destabilizing federal revenue.
Exhibit 1 – Housing Crisis Statistics
This exhibit provides a national snapshot of the U.S. housing crisis and demonstrates that the problem is structural, not cyclical. It quantifies the scale of renter burden, mortgage burden, housing shortages, and substandard housing conditions affecting tens of millions of households. The data shows that supply cannot meet demand, affordability has collapsed relative to incomes, and millions of families are paying unsustainable shares of their income for housing.
Exhibit 2 – Income Groups: Percent of Income Tax Paid
This exhibit demonstrates the extreme concentration of federal income tax payments among higher-income households, with the top 25% paying the overwhelming majority of income taxes while the first 50% contribute only a small fraction. This distribution allows Congress the ability to modernize how taxes paid by the first- and middle-income workers are used—without raising taxes or destabilizing federal finances.
Exhibit 3 – Tariff Revenues Replacing Income Tax
This exhibit illustrates how a portion of modern tariff revenues can responsibly replace income tax dollars redirected into GROWTH Accounts. Because tariffs disproportionately impact working families through higher consumer prices, reallocating a portion of this revenue toward housing affordability corrects a regressive imbalance while keeping total IRS revenue unchanged.
Exhibit 4 – Reducing HUD Program Costs
This exhibit identifies federal housing programs where partial reductions or consolidation can generate significant savings as households increasingly fund their own housing needs through GROWTH Accounts. These reductions reflect declining reliance on legacy programs and allow federal dollars to shift from bureaucracy to direct outcomes.
Exhibit 5 – Cost to Process Income Tax
This exhibit quantifies the administrative and out-of-pocket costs of the current income tax system. It highlights the inefficiency of collecting small-dollar taxes from lower-income filers and shows how redirecting these funds directly into housing accounts reduces waste while improving outcomes for taxpayers.
Exhibit 6 – Funding the GROWTH Plan for the First 50% of taxpayers
This exhibit shows how the GROWTH Plan will be funded for the first 50% of tax payers without raising taxes or adding new government programs.
Exhibit 7 – Funding the GROWTH Plan for the Middle 25% of Taxpayers
This exhibit outlines a diversified and realistic funding strategy that fully offsets redirected income taxes for the Housing-Ready Middle 25%. It demonstrates how efficiencies, reforms, and tariff allocations modernize federal spending while unlocking homeownership. There may be additional programs congress can reduce or eliminate.
Exhibit 8 – Why the Top 25 Continue Paying Taxes
This exhibit explains why the top 25% of taxpayers remain unchanged under the GROWTH Plan and how a stronger middle class benefits long-term economic growth, fiscal stability, and national prosperity.
Exhibit 9 – Income Needed to Afford Homes
This exhibit links home prices to the incomes required to afford them under standard underwriting guidelines, showing that many renters already earn mortgage-qualifying incomes but lack savings and reserves—gaps the GROWTH Plan directly addresses. The average cost for rent across the US ranges from $1,367 to $1,996.
Exhibit 10 – Income Needed to Afford Homes
This exhibit breaks down the full monthly cost of homeownership, including principal, interest, taxes, and insurance at 4.5%. It demonstrates that ownership costs often mirror or less than current rental payments, reinforcing that affordability barriers can be structural not always income based.
Exhibit 11 – Moving Renters to Owners
This exhibit summarizes the primary barriers preventing renters from becoming homeowners and directly maps those barriers to GROWTH Plan solutions. It shows how the plan converts rent payments into a realistic pathway to ownership.
References
View the full list of data sources, government reports, and research used to build the GROWTH Plan’s tables and exhibits.