ECONOMIC RECOVERY TAX ACT OF 1981 ERTA

A law that lowered income tax rates and allowed for expensing of depreciable assets. The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 (ERTA) also included several incentives for small business and incentives for saving. The ERTA also provided for automatic adjustment of tax brackets, and indexing for inflation because inflation increased nominal income and pushed taxpayers into higher and higher tax brackets.

The effect of indexing is to expose a smaller portion of income to taxation. Without indexing, inflation would give the government a larger tax windfall. The lower income and middle class workers were most affected by inflation caused tax increases. They were the most hurt by the increasing tax brackets.