The Rich Really Do Pay Lower Taxes Than You

2019/10/16 wwchu 反思經濟學

By David LeonhardtOCT. 6, 2019  NYT

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/06/opinion/income-tax-rate-wealthy.html

For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans last year paid a lower total tax rate — spanning federal, state and local taxes — than any other income group, according to newly released data.

The data here come from the most important book on government policy that I’ve read in a long time — called “The Triumph of Injustice,” to be released next week. The authors are Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, both professors at the University of California, Berkeley, who have done pathbreaking work on taxes.

The overall tax rate on the richest 400 households last year was only 23 percent, meaning that their combined tax payments equaled less than one quarter of their total income. This overall rate was 70 percent in 1950 and 47 percent in 1980.

the top 0.1 per cent of Americans own the same share of US wealth (22 per cent) as the bottom 90 per cent.