Quote:
Originally Posted by gixaholic
since 1979 the tax burden has moved from the poor/middle class to the rich... and it was done by lower taxes for all........
In 1979 the bottom 40% paid 50% of the tax burden.......
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Hi Gix,
I need to question some of your numbers here, Gix. Based on the IRS Historical Individual Tax Tables (
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/04asastr.xls ), they say the following:
1) In 1979, the bottom 40% actually paid
3.2% of tax burden...not 50%. Maybe you misspoke here. At the same time, the bottome 40% earned
11.3% of the total income. This group owned ~
12.6% of the disposable after tax income.
2) In 2003 (that is as far as the table goes) the bottom 40% actually paid
1.7% of tax burden, but earned
8.8% of the total income. This group owned ~
9.8% of the disposable after tax income.
So, although their share of the tax burden dropped, so did their share of the income....enough to offset the gain in lower taxes. In short, this group (the bottom 40%) was doing worse in 2004 than they were in 1979.
Quote:
in 2006 the top 25% pays 84.6% of the tax burden.......
with the
top 1% paying 36.89% of the tax burden
not only that in 2001 the top 5% paid 50% of the taxes and in 2006 the
top 5% paid 60%
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Let's do the same comparisons for the the top 1%, 5%, and 10% of income earners.
Top 10%
1) In 1979, this group paid
49% of the taxes and earned
33.1% of the income. Their share of the disposable income was
30.3%
2) In 2003, this group paid
65.2% of the taxes and earned
43.8% of the income. Their share of the disposable income was
40.8%
Top 5%
1) In 1979, this group paid
37.3% of the taxes and earned
22.2% of the income. Their share of the disposable income was
19.7%
2) In 2003, this group paid
53.5% of the taxes and earned
32.5% of the income. Their share of the disposable income was
29.7%
Top 1%
1) In 1979, this group paid
19.8% of the taxes and earned
9.6% of the income. Their share of the disposable income was
7.9%
2) In 2003, this group paid
33.2% of the taxes and earned
17.5% of the income. Their share of the disposable income was
15.3%.
Conclusions: Yes, more and more of the tax burden is shifting to the wealthy. However, they are also earning more and more of the money...and this offsets the additional tax burden. So much so that these groups (top 1%, 5%, & 10%) own larger shares of the disposable income today (2003) than they did in 1979.