Don't Quit Your Day Job…

Fresh off of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s classic quote to the Brookings Institute, “The rich are not paying their fair share“, it’s nice to see a few publications with proof that thought may be a little wacky.  The Congressional Budget Office released a timely report they named “Average Federal Taxes by Income Group“.  What does that report show?  Strangely, that the share of the burden of taxation for the rich in this country has actually been increasing.  Shocking, I know, with all of the quotes you can find to the contrary.  Let’s take a look…

2007 Share of Income vs. Share of Taxes (CBO)

Every income quintile pays less in taxes than their share of income… except the richest quintile.  Surprisingly, you won’t see this get much news coverage at all.  The story is the rich don’t pay enough, and are paying less and making more than ever before.  Politically, painting the ‘rich’ (defined here as having the greatest income in a year) as not paying their fair share speaks to the other 80% loudly.  Is it true?  Are the rich paying less and less of the share of taxes over the years?  Perhaps it’s best to link to a Tax Foundation article which covers just that – and goes back to the Pre-Reagan year of 1979.  The headline numbers?  in 1979 the top 1% of earners paid 18.3% of income taxes and 15.4% of the total tax burden.  Fast forward to 2007 and those numbers have increased to 39.5% and 28.1%, respectively.  Graphically, the jump is pretty intense, and I show here the Tax Foundation’s linked chart:

Change in Tax Burden since 1979 (CBO/Tax Foundation)

Arguing the rich aren’t paying their fair share just got a little bit harder, didn’t it?  Where do you think those numbers should be?  Let me know in the comments…

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