In a December 8 article by staff writer Jonathan Weisman, The Washington Post identified Citizens for Tax Justice as a “liberal watchdog group” but did not mention that Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) is a conservative group. The omission is particularly glaring because ATR was cited as a group whose findings on the impact of the Bush administration's dividend and capital gains tax cuts “contrast” with a study by economists at the nonpartisan Federal Reserve Board.

Americans for Tax Reform, which strongly supports extending the tax cuts on dividends and capital gains, “maintains that dividend payouts among the largest companies have jumped 59 percent” and that “the number of firms offering dividends soared” since the cuts were enacted in 2003, according to the Post. By contrast, the Federal Reserve study “concluded that the dividend tax cut had no real impact on the stock market and prompted 'only muted gain in total corporate payouts,' ” the Post noted. Although the Federal Reserve study has not yet been publicly released, its findings were revealed in greater detail in a December 6 Wall Street Journal article. An extension of tax cuts on dividends and capital gains, which were passed in 2003 and are set to expire in 2008, is under consideration by the House of Representatives.

As Media Matters for America has noted, Americans for Tax Reform president Grover G. Norquist holds weekly conservative strategy sessions in which talking points are distributed among “lobbyists, analysts, senior White House and Hill staffers, advocates for property rights, gun ownership and traditional values,” according to a previous Post report.

From Weisman's December 8 Washington Post article:

Today's vote on the capital gains and dividend tax cut extension promises to bring out the deficit-reduction rhetoric that was absent yesterday. In 2003, Congress lowered the tax rate on dividends to 15 percent from as high as 38.5 percent. The rate on most capital gains was lowered to 15 percent from 20 percent.

Democrats have long charged that the cuts overwhelmingly benefited the affluent. The liberal watchdog group Citizens for Tax Justice says that the richest 1 percent of Americans, with an average income of almost $1.3 million in 2009, would enjoy 53 percent of the value of the extension that year, while 78 percent would receive no benefit.

A recent study by economists at the Federal Reserve concluded that the dividend tax cut had no real impact on the stock market and prompted “only muted gain in total corporate payouts.”

In contrast, Americans for Tax Reform maintains that dividend payouts among the largest companies have jumped 59 percent, while the number of firms offering dividends soared after the tax cuts.