Quote:
Originally posted by bilmore
I note that you like to discuss these issues in terms that do not readily reveal what your numbers really mean. Thus, you don't like to see that your hated rich pay almost three quarters of all taxes paid in this country. It's safer - less revealing - to use your "more accurate" statistic that can be recited in a vacuum.
There simply isn't all that much tax left to cut in the lower groups. When the top earners are already made to shoulder the vast majority of the burden, of course any cut is going to fall to their benefit.
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I went back and looked up the facts. I found the following information:
- For 2001, the
returns in the top 1 percentile reported 17.5 percent
of total AGI and 33.9 percent of income tax . The
amount of AGI needed for inclusion in this percentile
group (i.e., the AGI floor) was $292,913. For 2000,
the returns in this percentile group (i.e., those with at
least $313,469 in AGI) reported 20.8 percent of total
AGI and 37.4 percent of income tax generated. The
fall in both the share of AGI and income tax for the
top 1 percentile, and corresponding increase in the
average tax rate, was largely attributable to the
reduction in net capital gains (less losses) for these
taxpayers. This was the first time that the share of
AGI and income tax for returns in the top 1 percentile
fell since 1993 and 1994, respectively.
For 2001, the returns in the top 5-percentile group
(returns reporting AGI of $127,904 or more) reported
32.0 percent of total AGI and 53.3 percent of income
tax, less than the 35.3 percent and 56.5 percent,
respectively, for 2000 (when the AGI floor was
$128,336).
The greatest percentage of the tax burden was actually generated at the lower brackets:
- more tax was generated
for 2001 at the 15-percent rate than at any other rate.
The 54.4 percent of income taxed at this rate was
reported by 95.3 percent of returns with taxable
income, generating 37.6 percent of tax generated.
The 27.5-percent rate generated the next largest
amount of income tax liability. Tax in that bracket
was reported on 32.1 percent of returns, and 19.4
percent of modified taxable income was taxed at this
rate, to generate 24.6 percent of tax generated.
Admittedly, a portion of the tax paid at the lower brackets was paid by taxpayers whose marginal tax rate was in higher brackets. But, on a comparative basis, it demonstrates that it is at lower to middle income levels that the greatest share of tax is generated.
But don't believe me. Read it for yourself in this article from the
IRS Statistics of Income Bulletin.
