“the tipping point came in 2017, with the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. ...The average effective tax rate paid by the top 0.1 percent of households dropped by 2.5 percentage points.”
“The Triumph of Injustice,” by economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman of the University of California at Berkeley, presents a first-of-its kind analysis of Americans’ effective tax rates since the 1960s. It finds that in 2018, the average effective tax rate paid by the richest 400 families in the country was 23 percent, a full percentage point lower than the 24.2 percent rate paid by the bottom half of American households.
“In 1980, by contrast, the 400 richest had an effective tax rate of 47 percent. In 1960, that rate was as high as 56 percent. The effective tax rate paid by the bottom 50 percent, by contrast, has changed little over time.”
The analysis differs from many other published estimates of tax burdens by encompassing the totality of taxes Americans pay: not just federal income taxes but also corporate taxes, as well as taxes paid at the state and local levels. It also includes the burden of about $250 billion of what Saez and Zucman call “indirect taxes,” such as licenses for motor vehicles and businesses.
The focus on the ultrarich is necessary, Saez and Zucman write, because those households control a disproportionate share of the nation’s wealth:
“The top 400 families have more wealth than the bottom 60 percent of households, while the top 0.1 percent own as much as the bottom 80 percent.”
The top 400 families are a “natural reference point,” Zucman says, because the IRS publishes information on the top 400 taxpayers as a group, and other sources, such as Forbes, track the fortunes of the 400 wealthiest Americans.
When are Americans going to STOP Republicans from giving Tax Cuts and Tax Breaks to the Rich when the facts prove Trickle Down Economics doesn’t work?
Trump Recession is Coming
