64% bracket is neocon talk. Unfortunately,there ain't no 64% bracket. I want us to go back to the JFK 70% on income over 400K; given inflation, and the fact that some folks can't live on less that 1/3 mil/month, we could move it up to $4M.
I'm sick and tired of paying more taxes than corporations, and as much SS as A Rod and Buffet. (So is Buffet). And I am sick and tired of "patriots" moving their money offshore to avoid taxes. As "great" as the economy has done with Shrub's taxes, we'll do a lot better when they expire.
NEW STUDY FINDS "DRAMATIC" REDUCTION SINCE 1960
IN THE PROGRESSIVITY OF THE FEDERAL TAX SYSTEM:
Largest Reductions in Progressivity Occurred in 1980s and Since 2000
By Aviva Aron-Dine
In a new study, Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, economists who have done groundbreaking work on the historical evolution of income inequality in the United States, examine how the progressivity of the federal tax system has changed over time.[1] Unlike previous analyses, theirs examines effective federal tax rates going back to 1960, including income, payroll, corporate, and estate taxes, and provides data for income groups reaching up to the top one-hundredth of one percent (.01 percent) of the population.[2] Several crucial findings emerge from their study.
“The progressivity of the U.S. federal tax system at the top of the income distribution has declined dramatically since the 1960s.” As Figure 1 shows, since 1960, average federal tax rates for middle-income households have increased and then declined modestly. Over the same period, high-income households saw sharp drops in their federal tax rates.
Moreover, the drops were largest for the very highest-income households. The average tax rate declined by a larger amount for households in the top one hundredth of 1 percent of the income scale (where incomes in 2004 averaged about $15 million) than for households in the top tenth of 1 percent (where incomes averaged above $3.7 million) or for households in the top 1 percent (where incomes averaged about $850,000).
Over the same period in which the progressivity of the tax system declined, pre-tax income inequality grew significantly (see Figure 2). In an earlier study that examined the distribution of income since 1913, Piketty and Saez showed that the concentration of pre-tax income has increased substantially since the 1970s, especially at the very top of the income spectrum. [3] According to their data, the share of the nation’s pre-tax income flowing to the top 1 percent of households more than doubled between 1970 and 2000. Income inequality decreased in 2001 and 2002, following the decline in the stock market, but then started growing again in 2003. In 2004 and 2005 (the latest year for which data are available), income concentration increased markedly.
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