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Share of the Income Taxes Paid, by Income Earned.
| Percent of Federal Individual Income Taxes Paid by High and Low Income Taxpayers, 1979 and 1989 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Income Group | 1979 | 1989 |
| Highest 5% | 37.6% | 43.6% |
| Highest 10% | 49.5% | 54.5% |
| Highest 25% | 73.1% | 76.5% |
| Highest 50% | 93.2% | 93.9% |
| Lowest 50% | 6.8% | 6.1% |
| Lowest 25% | 0.5% | 0.7% |
Excerpts from the text following the above table in the Information Please almanac:
Top Wage Earners Still Pay Largest Share of Income Tax Bill
The top-earning ten percent of US taxpayers paid nearly 55% of the Federal individual income tax bill in 1989, according to a Tax foundation analysis fo the recently released 1989 IRS tax return data. Despite all the major tax legislation witnessed over the decade of the 1980s, the fraction of income taxes collected for this top ten percent varied only slightly from year to year between 1979 and 1989 but inched steadily up during the decade.... [emphasis added]
Trends in Progressivity
The Federal income tax system has remained progressive. Top earners continue to pay a larger share of tax collections despite the alleged upper-income bias of the tax cuts and rate reductions under ERTA of 1981 and TRA of 1986. [emphasis ours --Kottmann Consulting]Growth in the income base itself has been increasing faster at the upper end of the income scale, resulting in increased income tax receipts from top earners. Naturally, this also results in a higher proportion of the entire population's income being taxed at the highest rate.
The 112 million returns filed for tax year 1989 reported an increase in AGI (adjusted gross income) of $194 billion over 1988. The largest percentage gain was from Individual Retirement Account distributions, up 24.3% from 1988. [emphasis ours --Kottmann Consulting] Social Security benefits rose 22.4%, and taxable interest increased 15.5%. Salries and wages, which constituted 71.6% of total positive income for 1989, rose 5.5% over 1988. All told, 1989 total individual income taxes rose $23.3 billion over 1988 for a record $439 billion take.
How Much More?
Liberals insist that the rich paid less, despite the facts (above) to the contrary. Below is the breakdown of how much more the rich were paying at the end of the 1980s than at the beginning.
| Taxpayers earning over $200,000 | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1980 | 1988 | |
| Tax rate | 70% | 28% |
| Number of returns | 117,000 | 725,000 |
| Dollars paid | $19.5 billion | $100.3 billion |
| Percent of income | 7.5% | 25.3% |
| Total taxes | $250.3 billion | $412.9 billion |
| Percent paid by groups | ||
| 1980 | 1988 | |
| $0-20K | 19.5% | 7.0% |
| 20-50K | 49.4% | 30.4% |
| 50-200K | 23.6% | 38.3% |
| 200K+ | 7.5% | 24.3% |
There you have it. The "evil rich" went from paying less than 8% of the total taxes to paying a quarter of them. For those making $20k and less, the share of taxes fell from 20% to 7%. And that is the true story. If you want a true period of the rich getting richer at the expense of the poor, you have to go back to the Carter years.
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