This is correct. I wish it were simple to post files to FR and I would provide you a table / graphs / analysis on this that I did last year.
The impact of a BLANKET expiration of the Bush Tax Cuts will be more serious for the lower bands than for the upper. The politicians have been twisting the truth (surprise) on this for as long as it has been around and the press (surprise again) has been helping them.
It is nothing but lies that it was all “for the rich”. It is the reason so many DON’T PAY ANY TAXES AT ALL now.
VIRTUALLY everything is wrong now.
The flip-side to this is that for years the left has been screaming about Bush’s “tax cuts for the rich” when in percentage terms, the lower middle class benefited much more over the last ten year’s from Bush’s tax cuts than the rich ever did.
And yet ... all these tax brackets collect a total of less than $1T in revenue. If everyone paid at the LOWEST tax bracket, but there were no deductions or credits, the Fed income tax would collect MORE than $1T. Depending on whether SS and tax exempt bonds were made taxable, the collection would be as high as $1.3T.
Clearly, people are not interested in a simple tax scheme that would actually raise more revenue — they prefer a tax system that can be used to intimidate people, influence their behavior, while treating unsuccessful people as blameless victims and successful people as heartless villains.
do you have a breakdown of what income levels
(single and married) fall into which percentiles?
I want something clear and concise to be able to post to newspaper websites