The effective rates don't speak to the shares borne by income class. So it is true that lower income people pay non-trivial rates of tax (in the sense of shares of their income), but it is also true that the bulk of the revenue comes from upper classes.
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=558 Naturally, those in lower income levels contribute less because they have less income, as brad noted. On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 4:22 PM, Doug Henwood <[email protected]> wrote: > > On May 11, 2011, at 1:52 PM, brad wrote: > > > I don't understand why we would want to debunk the idea that most > > federal income tax is paid by the top. It is simply a sign that the > > middle class has disappeared and that the bulk of people now fall > > bellow the $33,000 cut off for which low income tax credits reduce > > their federal taxes to zero. If we regrow the middle class their > > portion will go up. You can't squeeze water out of a rock. > > That's not really true. There have been major changes to tax rates over > time. Here are some numbers from the CBO, which I realize make for a less > snappy soundbite but have the virtue of being accurate. > > The first panel of the table is the effective tax rate (what people > actually pay, not what's on the books) for the bottom, middle, and top > quintiles and the top 1% for all federal taxes; the second is for the income > tax only. Note the big shift from positive to negative rates at the bottom > (mostly the EITC): > > > bottom 20% middle 20% top 20% top 1% > all > --- > 1979 8.0 18.6 27.5 37.0 > 1984 10.2 18.0 24.3 28.2 > 1994 6.6 17.3 27.4 35.8 > 2007 4.0 14.3 25.1 29.5 > > income > ------ > 1979 0.0 7.5 15.7 21.6 > 1984 0.7 6.7 14.1 19.3 > 1994 -3.9 5.3 15.0 23.0 > 2007 -6.8 3.3 14.4 19.0 > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l >
_______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
