Reply #30: Something to bring to your attention [View All]

[Idealism]

Well written article, I enjoyed it, but your assumption that top marginal effective rate is actually what people paid may be misleading. No one paid 77% of their total income to taxes, yes it was a higher percent than it has been in real receipts in correlation with the total pay per year, but there were huge tax loops and breaks that allowed the wealthy to escape the higher tax rate. These loopholes and breaks were taken out of the tax code by JFK, it was estimated $1 billion dollars per year was saved (in 1960 dollars) by lowering the top effective tax rate, but eliminating the vast amounts of write offs the wealthy were allowed. Many conservative talking heads use this point to show how "lowering taxes on the wealthy actually raises tax revenues" and to sell supply-side economics. This is of course patently false, and they don't mention the $1 billion dollars in tax breaks that got taken out of the code. But again, good article, thanks for your contribution