The incredible shrinking tax rate for the rich

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

The highest-income households in the U.S. have seen an enormous reduction in their overall tax burdens since 1950, a development highlighted Sunday by The New York Times’ columnist David Leonhardt, using data from a forthcoming book by economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman.

“Every tax that falls substantially on the wealthy has plummeted over the past 70 years,” Leonhardt said, citing taxes on personal and corporate income, investments and estates.

The drop has been particularly noticeable at the very top of the income spectrum. “The overall tax rate on the richest 400 households last year was only 23 percent, meaning that their combined tax payments equaled less than one quarter of their total income,” Leonhardt wrote. “This overall rate was 70 percent in 1950 and 47 percent in 1980.”

Leonhardt ‘s piece includes a dynamic chart showing the change in the overall tax rate across the income spectrum from 1950 and 2018. The chart below fills in the first and last years in the analysis — clearly displaying the dramatic reduction in the total tax rate for households in the upper part of the income distribution over a nearly 70-year period.



Leonhardt said the data also show that the superrich now pay a lower tax rate than even the poor: “For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans last year paid a lower total tax rate — spanning federal, state and local taxes — than any other income group, according to newly released data.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/taxes/the-incredible-shrinking-tax-rate-for-the-rich/ar-AAIqtJ3?li=BBnb7Kz

[Newest Reality]

1. I think we are seeing...

an addiction similar to heroin. They should get counseling therapy and even medications if necessary for Never Enough Syndrome and Affluenza.

Meanwhile, the rest of us have to be the unwitting and unwilling enablers of their insatiable habit because their values don't equate the disease of acquisition and affluence with other addictions. You know, five million, okay, but ten would be better...short rush...on and on.

As we know addictions can be very dangerous and society usually frowns on the behaviors that addicts exhibit and the negative effects they have on others. This one is not being properly diagnosed and they will continue injecting more wealth to the point that they take us all with them because you can only drain a country so far before it collapses.

In fact, there are historical precedents for what happens with a wealthy elite group takes its people to the brink for its own sake. They just collapsed and disappeared rather quickly after that. Times are different, but I think the devastation brought by this addicts will have a disastrous outcome if everything stays geared and primed for them to get a regular fix like that.

[roamer65]

2. A good first step would be to go back to the 1982 top rate.

50 percent. Adjust the tables according to inflation.

[ck4829]

3. K&R