Who pays the taxes
Dec 6, 2005
by _Bruce Bartlett_
(http://www.townhall.com/opinion/contributors/brucebartlett.html) ( _bio_
(http://www.townhall.com/opinion/contributors/brucebartlett.html) | _archive_
(http://www.townhall.com/opinion/contributors/brucebartlett/archive/2005/) |
_contact_
(http://www.townhall.com/opinion/contact/brucebartlett/177875.html) )
(http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/brucebartlett/2005/12/06/177875.html)
A few weeks ago, the Internal Revenue Service released data on tax year
2003. They show that the top 1 percent of taxpayers, ranked by adjusted gross
income, paid 34.3 percent of all federal income taxes that year. The top 5
percent paid 54.4 percent, the top 10 percent paid 65.8 percent, and the top
quarter of taxpayers paid 83.9 percent.
Not only are these data interesting on their own, but looking at them over
time shows that the share of total income taxes paid by the wealthy has risen
even as statutory tax rates have fallen sharply. A growing body of
international data shows the same trend.
On the first point, we see that in 1980, when the top statutory income tax
rate went up to 70 percent, the share of income taxes paid by the top 1
percent of taxpayers was just 19.3 percent. After Ronald Reagan's tax cut of
1981,
which reduced the top rate to 50 percent -- a massive give-away to the
wealthy according to those on the left -- the percentage of income taxes paid
by
the top 1 percent rose steadily.
By 1986, the top 1 percent's share of all federal income taxes rose to 25.7
percent. That year, the top statutory tax rate was further cut to 28 percent
-- another huge-give-away, we were told. Yet the share of income taxes paid
by the top 1 percent continued to rise. By 1992, it was up to 27.5 percent.
Of course, it would be a mistake to conclude that tax increases will not
raise the wealthy's tax share or that tax rate cuts always will. Nevertheless,
it is remarkable that the percentage of federal income taxes paid by the top 1
percent of taxpayers almost doubled during a time when the top income tax
rate fell by half.
A common liberal retort to these data is that they exclude payroll taxes,
which are assumed to be largely paid by the poor. However, it turns out that
when one includes payroll taxes in the calculations, it has far less impact on
the distribution of the tax burden than most people would assume, because the
wealthy also pay a lot of those taxes, too.
In a 2004 paper presented to the American Statistical Association, IRS
economists Michael Strudler and Tom Petska calculated percentiles data that
included both income taxes and Social Security taxes. In 1999, the top 1
percent
paid 23.3 percent of combined payroll and income taxes, the top 10 percent
paid
52.2 percent, and the top 20 percent paid 68.2 percent.
In recent years, a number of foreign countries have also started publishing
tax shares data. They show the same trend of higher and higher burdens on the
wealthy even when tax rates are cut sharply.
For example, according to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, the share of
total income taxes paid by the top 1 percent of taxpayers was 11 percent in
the
United Kingdom in 1979, when the top income tax rate was 83 percent. Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher cut that rate to 60 percent, and by 1987 the share
of income taxes paid by the top 1 percent had risen to 14 percent. The top
rate was cut again to 40 percent, where it still stands, and the share of
income taxes paid by the top 1 percent continued rising to a current level of
21
percent.
Statistics Canada recently released a study looking at tax shares in that
country. It shows that the share of federal income taxes paid by the top 10
percent of taxpayers reached 52.6 percent in 2002 -- almost exactly the same
as
is paid by the top 10 percent in the United Kingdom. However, the top income
tax rate in Canada is just 29 percent. (Provincial tax rates in Canada are
very substantially higher than among U.S. states.)
Finally, we now have data for Australia from the Australian Taxation Office.
In 2003, they show the top 5 percent of taxpayers paying 30.2 percent of all
income taxes, the top 10 percent paying 41.8 percent, and the top 25 percent
paying 63.8 percent. But the top income tax rate in Australia is 47 percent.
Thus we see that the country with the highest top rate also brings in the
least amount of total income tax revenue from its richest citizens in
percentage terms.
At some point, those on the left must decide what really matters to them --
the appearance of soaking the rich by imposing high statutory tax rates that
may cause actual tax payments by the wealthy to fall, or lower rates that may
bring in more revenue that can pay for government programs to aid the poor?
Sadly, the left nearly always votes for appearances over reality, favoring
high rates that bring in little revenue even when lower rates would bring in
more.
[GrassrootsMississippi]
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