3 ms·
The U.S. marginal tax rate in 1960 was 91%
by charlescearl 8y ago
The U.S. marginal tax rate in 1960 was 91%
- gjsman-1000 8y agoYes, but the _effective_ tax rate was only about half that, 49%-ish, because there were so many exemptions.
- danans 8y ago> because there were so many exemptions. The effective tax rate was lower primarily because 91% was the top marginal tax rate. Even those who paid the top marginal rate still had most of their income taxed at lower marginal tax rates, just as it is today. Also, a large number of exemptions still exist today.
- hackeraccount 8y agoIt used to be that all interest was deductible.
- danans 8y agoThis seems ripe for tax evasion. Two parties could loan each other the same amount, through different shell entities, and both could deduct the interest on the payments to the other.
- charlescearl 8y agoPiketty’s paper [1] gives a break out of U.S. tax 1970 vs. 2004. It looks like this proposal would effectively return the U.S. to postwar pre Reagan era norms? If I’m reading the table correctly the effective rate in 1970 for the highest bracket is 74.6%. [1] https://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/piketty-saezJEP07taxprog.pdf https://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/piketty-saezJEP07taxprog.pdf