Figure 1.
Source: The American Enterprise Institute
Presumably we want the rich to shoulder more of the tax burden. The Clinton-era top rate of 39.6 percent applied to income taxes; the Bush policy lowered this rate to 35 percent. But Figure 1 shows that, even though the top income tax rate went down, the top 10 percent of taxpayers ended up paying a higher share of income taxes after the Bush "tax cuts."
*** First: is it wise to assume that a feel-good increase in the top tax rate will really extract a higher share of the total taxes from the top earners? If so, by all means, let’s proceed — but we should at least understand that recent history doesn’t necessarily support our case. Second: just what is a “fair share”? The top 10 percent of income tax payers paid 64 percent of the burden when Clinton left office, and they are paying significantly more of the burden today — so if they’re not paying their "fair share" yet, they were even further away from paying their "fair share" under Clinton.
Correcting misconceptions about markets, economics, asset prices, derivatives, equities, debt and finance
Friday, December 7, 2012
Share Of Income Taxes Paid By Top 10 Percent And Bottom 50 Percent: 2001-2010 Chart
Posted By Milton Recht
From The American, "The Left’s Flip-Flop on the Bush Tax Cuts" by Steve Conover:
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