Excerpt Of The Day: Soak The Rich? Look How Much They Already Pay In Taxes

by John Hawkins | October 12, 2005 7:25 am

“(Internal Revenue Service data shows) that the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 34.3 percent of all federal income taxes in 2003, although they earned just 16.8 percent of the adjusted gross income. The top 5 percent of taxpayers paid more than half of all federal income taxes, the top 10 percent paid two-thirds, and the top half of taxpayers paid 96.5 percent, meaning that the bottom half paid just 3.5 percent.

Another IRS report decomposed the top 1 percent and found that the top 10 percent of the top 1 percent (the top 0.1 percent) increased its share of all federal income taxes from 7 percent in 1980 to 15.3 percent in 2003. These 129,000 tax filers earned 7.6 percent of the income and paid an average tax rate of 23.6 percent. This came to $114.6 billion — four times more than all the taxes paid by the 64 million taxpayers in the bottom 50 percent — who paid an average tax rate of 2.9 percent.” — Bruce Bartlett[1]

Endnotes:
  1. Bruce Bartlett: http://realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-10_11_05_BB.html

Source URL: https://rightwingnews.com/uncategorized/excerpt-of-the-day-soak-the-rich-look-how-much-they-already-pay-in-taxes/