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by cheph 1837 days ago
https://itep.org/who-pays-taxes-in-america-in-2020/

When summing up top earners:

- Top 1% of earners paid 24.3% of total income tax.

- Top 5% of earners paid 40.6% of total income tax.

- Top 20% of earners paid 66.4% of total income tax.

Guess their efforts are not that good.
2 comments
Yizahi 1837 days ago
Anyone looking at these numbers should remember that % of income tax number is a flat one, linear, meaning that 20% + 20% = 40% etc. But top % of earners is exponential, meaning that second percentile of earners doesn't equal first percentile, it is actually several orders of magnitude different.
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rorykoehler 1837 days ago
These figures are meaningless without also stating what % of income the top x% earned. for example if the top 1% earned 99% of all income then paying 24% of all tax doesn't look so good.
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dredmorbius 1836 days ago
Both you and OP are conflating the income and wealth question, which is what ProPublica's article specifically addresses.

By considering income but not wealth as taxable, the system skews automatically to highly regressive, furthering wealth inequality.

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rorykoehler 1834 days ago
I'm not conflating it, I'm just looking at it in isolation.
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cheph 1837 days ago
> These figures are meaningless without also stating what % of income the top x% earned.

No they are not. But those numbers are also in the link, and it is more or less the same, top 1% earned 20.9% of all income.

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rorykoehler 1836 days ago
Those numbers are ridiculous if you think about them for a second. The bottom earners probably have zero excess earnings but somehow pay similar tax per dollar earned as the top 1% earners who have pretty much only excess earnings, even when not accounting for inflated lifestyle inefficiencies. That is just insane.

Here is another view on the mess of income inequality in the US (with Europe for comparison): https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DjRkWPeU8AIeWtG?format=jpg&name=...

Indefensible really. Digging your own grave.

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cheph 1836 days ago
> The bottom earners probably have zero excess earnings but somehow pay similar tax per dollar earned as the top 1% earners who have pretty much only excess earnings, even when not accounting for inflated lifestyle inefficiencies.

Again, this is in the source I linked, and if by similar you mean, differing by 14.4%, then sure.

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rorykoehler 1836 days ago
That is basically nothing when you consider the other parts of my comment.
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