Who Pays What Taxes In The US

Every presidential election brings with it a renewed debate on taxes: should tax rates be increased or decreased (which in turn forces economists to break out their textbooks to brush up on their Laffer curve definitions)? Traditionally, the question eventually boils down to one thing: what should the tax treatment of the “rich” be: should the wealthy pay more or less in taxes?
Why the particular focus on the rich? The answer is simple: while those American who declare $500,000 and above in income represent less than 1% of total tax returns, they account for a quarter of taxable income and – more importantly – are responsible for 37% of government revenues collected through individual income taxes.

And with approximately $1.55 trillion in individual income tax expected to be collected in 2016, this means that less than 1% of US taxpayers will be responsible for more than a third, or roughly $575 billion in government revenue, nearly double what corporate income taxes ($300 billion) are expected to bring in.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Nov 26, 2016.