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"Average federal tax rates for all households, by comprehensive household income quintile. 1979 to 2018" at https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historica

"Average federal tax rates for all households, by comprehensive household income quintile. 1979 to 2018" at https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-average-federal-tax-rates-all-households https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-averag... "Average Total Federal Tax Rate (percent)" is lower for every percentile from 1979 to 2018. Year 1979 2018 Lowest Quintile 9.3 0.0 Second Quintile 15.0 8.1 Middle Quintile 19.1 12.8 Fourth Quintile 21.7 16.7 Highest Quintile 27.1 24.4 All Quintiles 22.4 19.3 81st - 90th Percentiles 23.6 20.0 91st - 95th Percentiles 25.2 21.9 96th - 99th Percentiles 27.1 24.2 Top 1% 35.1 30.2 So is "Average Individual Income Tax Rate (percent)" Year 1979 2018 Lowest Quintile -0.2 -12.0 Second Quintile 4.1 -2.1 Middle Quintile 7.4 2.2 Fourth Quintile 10.1 5.9 Highest Quintile 15.9 15.4 All Quintiles 11.1 9.4 81st - 90th Percentiles 12.3 9.0 91st - 95th Percentiles 14.1 11.4 96th - 99th Percentiles 16.8 15.5 Top 1% 22.6 23.5 That makes it really hard to accept your claim that "Taxes have never been as high as now in recent history." Now, sure, there are state taxes, and sales taxes, and payroll taxes, and all sorts of other taxes. Still, where do you get the numbers to back your statement that after 40+ years of Reaganism and unending legislative attempts to lower taxes, that the numbers now are higher than ever before?

areyousure 4y ago
In case anyone was curious, United States federal tax receipts were $463 billion in FY1979 and $3.33 trillion in FY2018, a growth of a factor of ~7.2 = ~5.2%/year. The population has grown by a factor of ~1.44 = ~0.95%/year and the effect of inflation has been a factor of ~3.63 = ~3.36%/year, which multiply together to a factor of ~5.2 = ~4.33%/year. The receipts grew faster by a factor of ~1.38 = 0.82%/year. This calculation does not consider the growth of expenditures specifically (as opposed to receipts) and similarly does not consider the growth of GDP (as opposed to inflation).
- PopAlongKid 4y ago
  Likewise it makes the false assumption that taxes are collected in the same year that income is received. Beginning in the 1980s, many billions of dollars that were subject to tax ended up in IRAs and 401k retirement plans where taxes are deferred for many decades in most cases. Likewise, like kind exchanges of property also defer huge amounts of taxes. So looking at annual tax receipts omits a huge amount of taxed-but-deferred income.
ltbarcly3 4y ago
I don't know if taxes are higher now vs some point in history (probably higher than some, lower than others) but your implicit claim that 'taxes' == 'US Federal Income Tax Rate' is so laughable I can't believe you can make it with a straight face. Not everyone is from the US, and the people from the US know that there are like 5 levels of taxation, from local sales tax to property tax to state income tax, state personal property tax, taxes relabeled as 'fees' to circumvent state rules about new tax creation, tariffs, payroll taxes, etc etc etc etc etc. Then there are taxes like social security, disability insurance, unemployment insurance, etc. Even if all we look at is US federal income taxes, you don't include them all. Social security is a sum of 12.4% of your income (and it is regressive!). Medicare is 2.9%. These have gone up considerably since 1979 (8.1% total in 1979, 15.3% now)
- eesmith 4y ago
  "so laughable I can't believe you can make it with a straight face" Which is why I didn't. I specifically pointed out that there are other taxes. My point was to get ekianjo to present data to support their claim. Do you have better data?
  - ltbarcly3 4y ago
    This reminds me of the guy who lost his keys. He was looking by the street light when his friend asked him if he lost his keys by the light. "No, I lost them over by my car, but it's too dark to see anything over there." Here is a graph from wikipedia that shows that taxes in the US are in total about as high as they have ever been (which was 2000). https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Federal%2C_State%2C_and_Local_income_tax_GDP.pdf https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Federal%... You can very clearly see that while Federal taxes are gradually decreasing, that is more than made up by Payroll taxes.
    - nonameiguess 4y ago
      This still directly contradicts the original claim, though. This graphic shows aggregate tax burden was at its highest ever in the late 90s and is currently on a slight downward trend. "About as high" isn't great if you hate taxes, but it isn't what was being disputed.
PopAlongKid 4y ago
>This calculation does not consider the growth of expenditures edit: was meant as reply to a different comment
- eesmith 4y ago
  Where is the data to back the claim "Taxes have never been as high as now in recent history"? My data is half-assed, certainly. Surely you should be more critical of someone presenting no data, yes?
ekianjo 4y ago
> "Average federal tax rates for all households Wait, so you only pay Federal taxes in the US? That's practical if you only cherry pick a part of the data.
- eesmith 4y ago
  If you read down to the end, I wrote "Now, sure, there are state taxes, and sales taxes, and payroll taxes, and all sorts of other taxes." I used this to ask for source data for the claim.

areyousure 4y ago

In case anyone was curious, United States federal tax receipts were $463 billion in FY1979 and $3.33 trillion in FY2018, a growth of a factor of ~7.2 = ~5.2%/year. The population has grown by a factor of ~1.44 = ~0.95%/year and the effect of inflation has been a factor of ~3.63 = ~3.36%/year, which multiply together to a factor of ~5.2 = ~4.33%/year. The receipts grew faster by a factor of ~1.38 = 0.82%/year. This calculation does not consider the growth of expenditures specifically (as opposed to receipts) and similarly does not consider the growth of GDP (as opposed to inflation).

PopAlongKid 4y ago
Likewise it makes the false assumption that taxes are collected in the same year that income is received. Beginning in the 1980s, many billions of dollars that were subject to tax ended up in IRAs and 401k retirement plans where taxes are deferred for many decades in most cases. Likewise, like kind exchanges of property also defer huge amounts of taxes. So looking at annual tax receipts omits a huge amount of taxed-but-deferred income.

ltbarcly3 4y ago

I don't know if taxes are higher now vs some point in history (probably higher than some, lower than others) but your implicit claim that 'taxes' == 'US Federal Income Tax Rate' is so laughable I can't believe you can make it with a straight face. Not everyone is from the US, and the people from the US know that there are like 5 levels of taxation, from local sales tax to property tax to state income tax, state personal property tax, taxes relabeled as 'fees' to circumvent state rules about new tax creation, tariffs, payroll taxes, etc etc etc etc etc. Then there are taxes like social security, disability insurance, unemployment insurance, etc. Even if all we look at is US federal income taxes, you don't include them all. Social security is a sum of 12.4% of your income (and it is regressive!). Medicare is 2.9%. These have gone up considerably since 1979 (8.1% total in 1979, 15.3% now)

eesmith 4y ago
"so laughable I can't believe you can make it with a straight face" Which is why I didn't. I specifically pointed out that there are other taxes. My point was to get ekianjo to present data to support their claim. Do you have better data?
- ltbarcly3 4y ago
  This reminds me of the guy who lost his keys. He was looking by the street light when his friend asked him if he lost his keys by the light. "No, I lost them over by my car, but it's too dark to see anything over there." Here is a graph from wikipedia that shows that taxes in the US are in total about as high as they have ever been (which was 2000). https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Federal%2C_State%2C_and_Local_income_tax_GDP.pdf https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Federal%... You can very clearly see that while Federal taxes are gradually decreasing, that is more than made up by Payroll taxes.
  - nonameiguess 4y ago
    This still directly contradicts the original claim, though. This graphic shows aggregate tax burden was at its highest ever in the late 90s and is currently on a slight downward trend. "About as high" isn't great if you hate taxes, but it isn't what was being disputed.

PopAlongKid 4y ago

>This calculation does not consider the growth of expenditures edit: was meant as reply to a different comment

eesmith 4y ago
Where is the data to back the claim "Taxes have never been as high as now in recent history"? My data is half-assed, certainly. Surely you should be more critical of someone presenting no data, yes?

ekianjo 4y ago

> "Average federal tax rates for all households Wait, so you only pay Federal taxes in the US? That's practical if you only cherry pick a part of the data.

eesmith 4y ago
If you read down to the end, I wrote "Now, sure, there are state taxes, and sales taxes, and payroll taxes, and all sorts of other taxes." I used this to ask for source data for the claim.