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by tmarman 2800 days ago
It's also misleading and intellectually dishonest to discuss the amount of income tax paid in the context of rate while ignoring the underlying income.

E.g., "The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual income taxes (37.3 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (30.5 percent)."

Ok, except this ignores the amount _earned_ by the top 1% (avg $678,359) vs. the bottom 90% (avg $35,083). [1]

And of course, higher wage earners are also likely to have disproportionately more wealth, as it's a lot easier to save, invest and otherwise maximize growth and minimize tax exposure when you have more cash available.

[1] https://www.epi.org/blog/wages-rose-for-the-bottom-90-percen...