In June 2001, Congress and the president approved the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001

(EGTRRA), the largest tax cut in two decades. The multiyear cut, scheduled to phase in gradually over the decade, will reduce taxes (and government revenue) by $1.35 trillion by 2010. EGTRRA then “sun-sets ” on December 31, 2010, restoring the law to its pre-2001 status. This unusual sunset provision, considered a budget gim-mick by many analysts, leaves the long-term outlook uncertain. Few observers, however, expect EGTRRA to disappear entirely. The President and many congres-sional members have already proposed making the provisions permanent. Around the time of EGTRRA, support for tax relief was high, though policy-makers disagreed over how it should be accomplished. The original blueprint President Bush sent to Congress contained little relief for working poor families. In the Senate, a bipartisan coalition succeeded in adding provisions targeting low- and middle-income families. To critics ’ dismay, the largest share of the tax cut still goes to families with incomes over $200,000; this group receives 46 percent of the total income and estate tax cut by 2010. But the bipartisan effort secured important victo-ries for low- and middle-income working parents. This brief describes the EGTRRA provi-sions that benefit low-income and middle-income families with children and esti-mates these two groups ’ tax cuts over the decade.1 Revisions to three credits—the child tax credit, the child and dependent care tax credit, and the earned income tax credit—benefit the bottom half of the income distribution more than the top half. Tax Relief for Low- and Middle-Income Families EGTRRA changed almost every tax provi-sion designed to help families. Combined, these changes will cost almost $660 billion.2 Two child-related provisions and three marriage penalty relief provisions target low- and middle-income families (though high-income families also benefit)