pity the rich?

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

from BUSINESS WEEK:

>A Bigger Tax Bite in the '90s?

According to the Tax Foundation, the tax burden of the top 25% of federal
income taxpayers [in the U.S.] grew appreciably in the 1990s, from 77.2% of
total taxes collected in 1989 to 83.5% in 1999, while their average tax rate
climbed by 2.4 percentage points, to 18.7%. Indeed, the Washington-based
research group's analysis of Internal Revenue Service data suggests that the
upper 50% of taxpayers paid a bigger share of taxes and a higher average tax
rate.

As is often the case, however, the devil is in the details. A closer look at
the data reveals that average tax rates paid by income groups other than the
highest 10% of taxpayers actually declined a bit. And the bottom 95% of
taxpayers shouldered less of the total tax burden than they did in 1989.

The explanation: The rise in overall tax rates for the upper half was driven
by a huge jump in income received by the wealthy, especially the top 1% of
taxpayers. That lucky group's share of adjusted gross income reported by all
taxpayers rose by 37%, to nearly one-fifth of the total. Because of the
progressive tax system (and the 1992 Clinton tax hike), such outsize income
gains kicked up their average tax rate from 23.3% to 27.5%.

Over the 1990s decade, the average adjusted gross income of the top 1% of
taxpayers rose from $420,000 to $915,000. That of the bottom half of
taxpayers rose by about $3,600, to $12,450. <

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine