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by Ididntdothis
2419 days ago
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If you compare the share of taxes different groups are paying you also should compare the share of income they are receiving. You should also compare income growth of these groups over the last decades. It’s hard not to come to the conclusion that upper incomes did much better over that period compared to other groups. |
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If someone pays 30% of income to tax, raising their income only means they're paying more dollars in tax. 30% is a ratio.
The rich also lost bigger chunks during the downturn.
The middle class is shrinking due to more moving up than down. That doesn't fit your narrative so well, but as far as I can tell, it's true, and has been true for some time. So of course their "share" is shrinking and the "rich" share is increasing - but then you might want to see what happened to the underlying people. After all, the set of rich people (and middle class, and poor) is always in flux.
If you really care to look at the numbers, the top 1% earns around 20% of all income, and pays around 37% of all taxes. The bottom 50% made 12% of all income, and paid 3% of all taxes.
So the top is paying almost 2x the share of taxes compared to their income than the average person, and the bottom half pays around 1/4x.
No matter how you slice it, the top do pay a lot in taxes. It's why the US is rated one of the most progressive tax structures in the OECD.
https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-...