Tax Rates, Inequality and the 1%

WSJ ^ | 12-6-11 | alan reynolds

[WOBBLY BOB]

In short, what the Congressional Budget Office presents as increased inequality from 2003 to 2007 was actually evidence that the top 1% of earners report more taxable income when tax rates are reduced on dividends, capital gains and businesses filing under the individual tax code.

If Congress raises top individual tax rates much above the corporate rate, many billions in business income would rapidly vanish from the individual tax returns the CBO uses to measure the income of the top 1%. Small businesses and professionals would revert to reporting most income on corporate tax returns as they did in 1979.

[WOBBLY BOB]

didn't find this posted...

[PA Engineer]

They didn't have the Link earlier. Worth reposting again. Thanks. BTTT.

[bilhosty]

Isn’t it sdomething how the newsmedia owned by the upper 1% bashes the upper 1%. As long as that happens maybe the upper 1% should pay taxes and they should keep getting it higher again and again until the upper 1% changes the nature of THEIR MEDIA. I am getting sick and tired of defending them.

[Opinionated Blowhard]

The amazing part of this article is the revelation of just how progressive the tax code has become since 1979. Reagan and Bush removed millions of lower class people as taxpayers and reduced rates disproportionately for the middle class. Sure, top earner rates dropped but the loopholes were eliminated so the effective rate on top earners didn’t come down too much. Their hearts were in the right place but the unintended consequence was the nightmare we are in now where the middle and lower class get all kinds of entitlements and don’t pay for them. And so they vote for expanded entitlements because they don’t feel the bite of taxes necessary to pay for them. Or they demand that the “rich” pay for them.

If we have a tax increase in this country, it needs to be a middle and lower class tax increase.