Does anyone recall the income tax rate in the 50s, 60s, or 70s? (Vanity)

15 Dec 2022 | Me

[amorphous]

Below is an income tax table I found online. It's kind of shocking. I'm starting to distrust online sources - wondering if anyone on Free Republic would be able to verify its accuracy:

[cowboyusa]

JFK at the time was a Moderate or Moderate Liberal. Today, he would be Conservative.

[Tired of Taxes]

Wow, that’s crazy! Trying to put it into perspective...

The average family income in 1951: $3,700/year
Average cost to buy a house: $9,000
$200,000 in 1951 was equivalent to about $2 million today.

Still, the income tax rates were insanely high back then.

[gundog]

The year the Titanic sank.....

[brianl703]

The brackets for Virginia income tax have not been adjusted since the 1970s.

The top bracket starts at something like $18K.

[Captain Peter Blood]

They were high, 90% was the highest rate, but there were lots and lots of write-offs for people, so no one paid that rate or anywhere near it.

[Captain Peter Blood]

The top rate was not 90% when Reagan got in office, and don’t forget while Reagan may have lowered tax rates he still raised taxes about 36 times in office.

[kvanbrunt2]

I don’t think the tax was levied against wages until the 50’s. Just income. “Glenshaw glass” scotus ruling changed the direct tax to include wages. Changed the tax to be om appurtenance to wealth plus income income. no source or derivation required..

[Captain Peter Blood]

Pope also had personal service contracts and their own corporations where the tax rates were lower. All sorts of way to avoid that rate.

[Tellurian]

strange those years are looked upon as "the good old days."

• Individualism was still respected. Now it's 'think like us or you'll be outcast'.
• Public Servants were more convincingly so. Now they're usually Huckstering Serpents.
• The "town square" involved real conversations with your neighbors, and most could account for themselves at any time. Now in the digital age there are fake personas in every direction. They're ounting coup and intent on manipulating others' choices.
• One working person could fund a family. If there were difficulties extended family would graciously help (usually). This tied people together and encouraged responsibility. Now it's expected that the rules and regulations of "government" will supply the "charity", and irresponsibility is pandemic.
• Upper federal income tax rates may have been scary, but in reality almost everyone was in the same base tax bracket. Now, the situation is not that much different, but the time spent conforming to tax laws is counterproductive to say the least.
• Sales taxes and state income taxes were low, and government workers served the community. For lower than average pay they had a secure job. Now government workers serve themselves for the most part, are paid better than the private sector, and are pretty much immune from removal.

[Hootowl99]

Historical tax rates are not particularly useful without factoring in the effect of typical deductions available. This would give the typical marginal tax rate paid at each bracket. I can assure you, someone in the 70% bracket and counting their dividend checks was not paying anywhere near 70% taxes on a marginal basis.

What this example tax bracket detail shows is the Democrat obsession with taxing the rich for the rhetoric while protecting their buddies in real life.

[Nifster]

No we were paying for Viet Nam

[LS]

No, but I know that the rate was 75% coming out of WW I thanks to Woody Wilson, and I think 25% on the lowest bracket.

Before the war it was 6% and 1%.

Under Harding/Coolidge it was cut to 25% and 5%.

The point is, even after the “huge” Harding/Coolidge tax cuts, taxpayers were paying about 4-5x more than before the war.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

That was back when you could write off everything. Today, you have to be bankrupted by medical costs before you can write off a penny. Cars, no longer a write-off.

I call it a push. We had high tax rates but prolific write offs knocked taxes down substantially. People frankly had more buying power back then, when marginal rates were high but you could write everything off.

[griswold3]

Thanks. Taxes were not applied to total income, as you stated. No one would work by those measures.

[Dr. Sivana]

In Nero Wolfe stories of that era, Wolfe would slack off at the end of a productive year because the taxes were so high. Of course, some murder would happen that would force him to get involved whether he felt like it or not.