4 ms·

There were so many deductions and ways of hiding things the effective rate was maybe 20%

• hcknwscommenter 2y ago
  source?
  • SJC_Hacker 2y ago
    Tax revenue as a percentage of GDP historically has floated around 18% https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/united-states/tax-revenue--of-gdp#:~:text=US%20Tax%20revenue%3A%20%25%20of%20GDP%20data%20is%20updated%20yearly%2C,low%20of%2013.7%20%25%20in%202009. https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/united-states/tax-reve... Here's the income percentage held by the top 1% 1950-2010 http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/capital21c/en/Piketty2014FiguresTables.pdf http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/capital21c/en/Piketty2014Fig... While its true that its higher now than it was the 1950s-1980s, its an increase of about 15%. It if was the case that the very high marginal rates were actually being paid, you would expect the percentage of income held by the top 1% to be much higher. Here's another source with more direct comparison - how much their income they actually paid in tax https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/ https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/taxes-on-the-rich...
• deleted 2y ago
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• PopAlongKid 2y ago
  Indirectly, we can point to the creation of Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) in the 1960s to ensure that higher income taxpayers paid at least some minimum despite the plentiful deductions. Some of the things not allowed under AMT are state and local tax deductions, interest on mortgage equity debt (not acquistion debt), personal and dependent exemption deductions, deferring tax on compensation due to Incentive Stock Options (ISO), some kinds of accelerated depreciation, and so on.