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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cosmicforce who wrote (209607)	11/27/2012 1:07:59 PM
From: Metacomet	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 540882

Wonderful example of the games that are played around the current tax scheme Obviously proving nothing except who pays what by the set of rules selected for framing the data Would be refreshing to eliminate these games entirely Everybody pays 10% of their income to run the federal government Period

To: cosmicforce who wrote (209607)

11/27/2012 11:02:48 PM

From: Win Smith

Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 540882

I think those numbers need to be read in conjunction with the corresponding total income shares. First source I found was taxfoundation.org ; that site has the data you found plus a bunch more, the particular table the link goes to gives the percent of total AGI in the various percentile brackets. It's also interesting because starting in 2001, they show the top 0.1% as well as the top 1% The top 0.1% looks to have about half the total income of the top 1%, E.g. the average income in the top 0.1% is about 9x that of the next 0.9 %. The creme de la creme, as it were. But there's some symmetry, the top 1% has about half the income of the top 10%, and the top 10% has about half the total income.

The upper crusters took a little bit of a hit in 2008-2009, presumably a lot of that has been made up since with the market (if not economy) recovery. If you look at 2007, before the crash broke the distribution trend, the top 0.1% made about the same all together as the bottom 50% make all together.

People (well, Republicans are people too, despite their best efforts to convince us otherwise) claim that you can't raise much money by raising rates on the top 1%, but that just doesn't seem to be true. If the top 1% paid the 33% net rate they had in 1986, the middle of the Reagan years(!) they'd have paid about 50% more than they did in 2007, when they had a net rate of 22%. That alone would have raised total income tax collected by 20%, without touching anybody below the top 1%.

Year	Total	Top 0.1%	Top 1%	Top 5%	Between 5% & 10%	Top 10%	Between 10% & 25%	Top 25%	Between 25% & 50%	Top 50%	Bottom 50%

2001	100%	8.10%	17.53%	31.99%	11.12%	43.11%	22.12%	65.23%	20.96%	86.19%	13.81%
2002	100%	7.06%	16.12%	30.55%	11.22%	41.77%	22.61%	64.37%	21.40%	85.77%	14.23%
2003	100%	7.57%	16.77%	31.18%	11.18%	42.36%	22.50%	64.86%	21.15%	86.01%	13.99%
2004	100%	9.14%	19.00%	33.45%	10.90%	44.35%	21.78%	66.13%	20.46%	86.58%	13.42%
2005	100%	10.65%	21.20%	35.75%	10.70%	46.44%	21.08%	67.52%	19.65%	87.17%	12.83%
2006	100%	11.22%	22.06%	36.66%	10.66%	47.32%	20.84%	68.16%	19.33%	87.49%	12.51%
2007	100%	11.93%	22.83%	37.44%	10.61%	48.05%	20.66%	68.71%	19.04%	87.74%	12.26%
2008	100%	9.96%	20.00%	34.73%	11.03%	45.77%	21.62%	67.38%	19.86%	87.25%	12.75%
2009	100%	7.80%	16.93%	31.72%	11.47%	43.19%	22.62%	65.81%	20.71%	86.52%	13.4800%