On May 9, 2011, at 6:54 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: > Speaking of debunking, are there any articles that take up the rightwing > claim that the top 3 percent of American taxpayers are responsible for > 46 percent of all the tax revenue?
Yeah, it's because they have so much income. (And the figure they usually give is for income taxes alone - not including SS taxes.) The top 5% had 32% of all pretax income in 2007; the top 1% had 19%. Since the bottom part of the income distribution pays little or no income tax, the very rich do provide an outsized share of the revenue. The top 5% paid 61% of all income taxes in 2007; the top 1%, 39%. But of all federal revenues, the top 5% contributes 44%, and the top 1%, 28%. (2007 is the most recent year for which the CBO has numbers.) Doug _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
