[eesmith]

"Average federal tax rates for all households, by comprehensive household income quintile. 1979 to 2018" at https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-averag...

"Average Total Federal Tax Rate (percent)" is lower for every percentile from 1979 to 2018.

  Year                     1979  2018
  Lowest Quintile           9.3   0.0
  Second Quintile          15.0   8.1
  Middle Quintile          19.1  12.8
  Fourth Quintile          21.7  16.7
  Highest Quintile         27.1  24.4
  All Quintiles            22.4  19.3
  81st - 90th  Percentiles 23.6  20.0
  91st - 95th Percentiles  25.2  21.9
  96th - 99th Percentiles  27.1  24.2
  Top 1%                   35.1  30.2

So is "Average Individual Income Tax Rate (percent)"

  Year                     1979  2018
  Lowest Quintile          -0.2 -12.0
  Second Quintile           4.1  -2.1
  Middle Quintile           7.4   2.2
  Fourth Quintile          10.1   5.9
  Highest Quintile         15.9  15.4
  All Quintiles            11.1   9.4
  81st - 90th  Percentiles 12.3   9.0
  91st - 95th Percentiles  14.1  11.4
  96th - 99th Percentiles  16.8  15.5
  Top 1%                   22.6  23.5

That makes it really hard to accept your claim that "Taxes have never been as high as now in recent history."

Now, sure, there are state taxes, and sales taxes, and payroll taxes, and all sorts of other taxes.

Still, where do you get the numbers to back your statement that after 40+ years of Reaganism and unending legislative attempts to lower taxes, that the numbers now are higher than ever before?

[areyousure]

In case anyone was curious, United States federal tax receipts were $463 billion in FY1979 and $3.33 trillion in FY2018, a growth of a factor of ~7.2 = ~5.2%/year. The population has grown by a factor of ~1.44 = ~0.95%/year and the effect of inflation has been a factor of ~3.63 = ~3.36%/year, which multiply together to a factor of ~5.2 = ~4.33%/year. The receipts grew faster by a factor of ~1.38 = 0.82%/year.

This calculation does not consider the growth of expenditures specifically (as opposed to receipts) and similarly does not consider the growth of GDP (as opposed to inflation).

[PopAlongKid]

Likewise it makes the false assumption that taxes are collected in the same year that income is received. Beginning in the 1980s, many billions of dollars that were subject to tax ended up in IRAs and 401k retirement plans where taxes are deferred for many decades in most cases. Likewise, like kind exchanges of property also defer huge amounts of taxes. So looking at annual tax receipts omits a huge amount of taxed-but-deferred income.

[PopAlongKid]

>This calculation does not consider the growth of expenditures

edit: was meant as reply to a different comment

[eesmith]

Where is the data to back the claim "Taxes have never been as high as now in recent history"?

My data is half-assed, certainly. Surely you should be more critical of someone presenting no data, yes?

[ekianjo]

> "Average federal tax rates for all households

Wait, so you only pay Federal taxes in the US? That's practical if you only cherry pick a part of the data.

[eesmith]

If you read down to the end, I wrote "Now, sure, there are state taxes, and sales taxes, and payroll taxes, and all sorts of other taxes."

I used this to ask for source data for the claim.

[ltbarcly3]

I don't know if taxes are higher now vs some point in history (probably higher than some, lower than others) but your implicit claim that 'taxes' == 'US Federal Income Tax Rate' is so laughable I can't believe you can make it with a straight face. Not everyone is from the US, and the people from the US know that there are like 5 levels of taxation, from local sales tax to property tax to state income tax, state personal property tax, taxes relabeled as 'fees' to circumvent state rules about new tax creation, tariffs, payroll taxes, etc etc etc etc etc. Then there are taxes like social security, disability insurance, unemployment insurance, etc.

Even if all we look at is US federal income taxes, you don't include them all. Social security is a sum of 12.4% of your income (and it is regressive!). Medicare is 2.9%. These have gone up considerably since 1979 (8.1% total in 1979, 15.3% now)

[eesmith]

"so laughable I can't believe you can make it with a straight face"

Which is why I didn't. I specifically pointed out that there are other taxes.

My point was to get ekianjo to present data to support their claim.

Do you have better data?

[ltbarcly3]

This reminds me of the guy who lost his keys. He was looking by the street light when his friend asked him if he lost his keys by the light. "No, I lost them over by my car, but it's too dark to see anything over there."

Here is a graph from wikipedia that shows that taxes in the US are in total about as high as they have ever been (which was 2000). https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Federal%... You can very clearly see that while Federal taxes are gradually decreasing, that is more than made up by Payroll taxes.

[nonameiguess]

This still directly contradicts the original claim, though. This graphic shows aggregate tax burden was at its highest ever in the late 90s and is currently on a slight downward trend. "About as high" isn't great if you hate taxes, but it isn't what was being disputed.

[eesmith]

It's supposed to remind you of Cunningham's Law: "the best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer."

As nonameiguess already pointed out, your answer disputes ekianjo's claim, as the peak in your graph was 1999.

[ltbarcly3]

As fun as tribal arguing is, I wasn't taking a side. Did you read my post at all? I was saying that the methodology for claiming taxes were lower was so stupid as to defy even any attempt to ascribe good faith.

Let me quote my post for your convenience: "I don't know if taxes are higher now vs some point in history"

[eesmith]

I don't know what "tribal arguing" means.

I did read your side. You believe I'm not arguing in good faith. I think that's a misinterpretation. I am not versed in the topic, and I don't pretend to be one. But the exchange was claim/counter-claim/counter-counter-claim without any citations, going nowhere.

While presenting wrong, or at least incomplete numbers, shifts it to one about presenting the actual numbers and what they mean, and if it's justified tax increases.

If that's that's bad faith tribalism, than so be it. But you'll notice the pointless exchange about "most taxes EVAR" has stopped.