[ancient_geezer]

Listen, fool, your chart ends in 2000, it is now 2005 - and it is for income taxes, only.

Figure this will add some more to the picture?

Looks more tax burden on GDP coming up unless Congress steps in making the Bush tax cuts permanent.

Any relief in tax burden in recent years appears to be likely to be headed right back into the mists of tax cuts past with the proclivity of Senate democrats hanging on to their filibuster and stalls.

 

Effective Federal Tax Rates Under Current Law, 2001 to 2014
http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=5746&sequence=1&from=0

Tax legislation enacted in 2001, 2002, and 2003 is scheduled to phase in, phase out, and "sunset" entirely after 2010. As a result, federal tax rules will differ in every year from 2001 through 2011 and, consequently, so will effective tax rates--which are the total federal taxes that people bear measured as a percentage of their income. Because provisions have different impacts on people with different income and because those provisions change from year to year, effective tax rates fall and rise in patterns that vary over both time and income quintiles (or fifths of the distribution). This analysis of effective federal tax rates from 2002 through 2014 uses data on incomes in 2001, the most recent year for which information is available.

*** SNIP ***

 

Table 2.

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Effective Federal Tax Rates and Shares Under Current Tax Law, Based on 2001 Incomes, by Income Category, 2001 to 2014

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Income Category	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014
Total Effective Federal Tax Rate
Lowest Quintile	5.4	5.3	5.2	5.2	5.5	5.6	5.7	5.8	5.9	5.8	7.8	8.0	8.1	8.3
Second Quintile	11.6	11.6	11.0	11.1	12.0	12.1	12.3	12.4	12.4	12.3	14.2	14.4	14.5	14.7
Middle Quintile	15.2	15.0	14.5	14.6	15.6	15.7	15.9	15.9	16.1	16.1	17.6	17.8	18.0	18.2
Fourth Quintile	19.3	19.1	18.5	18.5	19.6	19.8	20.0	20.1	20.4	20.5	21.8	22.0	22.2	22.4
Highest Quintile	26.8	25.4	24.4	23.8	26.3	26.5	26.5	26.4	27.1	27.1	28.5	28.6	28.7	28.8
All Quintiles	21.5	20.7	19.9	19.6	21.4	21.6	21.7	21.7	22.1	22.1	23.6	23.8	23.9	24.1
Top 10 Percent	28.6	26.7	25.7	24.9	27.8	28.0	28.0	27.9	28.6	28.5	30.1	30.2	30.2	30.3
Top 5 Percent	30.1	27.7	26.7	25.6	29.0	29.3	29.2	29.0	29.8	29.7	31.5	31.5	31.5	31.6
Top 1 Percent	33.0	29.6	28.4	26.7	31.1	31.2	30.9	30.4	31.6	31.2	33.8	33.7	33.7	33.6

 

It's not that he's a bad source, it's that you picked an outdated document. How honest is that?

 

Seems assuming no change in long term trends is a better way to go, at least until such time as we see Congress Critters acually implement permanant tax cuts into the mix, instead of letting the intended course of events take thier toll.

[Principled]

Their obvious strategy is to confuse the issue with minutia to prevent others from learning about it. This is the trial balloon for when the Fair Tax is discussed in public. In the real world, however, they'll have a hard time being evasive, changing positions, magnifying trivial issues, and having no alternative to present.

The useful part of this for pro tax reformers is practice reducing the minutia, practice nailing their inconsistencies, and pegging them for big-government, income tax lovers. That won't be hard in the real world.

The anonymity of the web does not serve their strategy. The real world will be impossible for that strategy. You think that's all they got? Or will they go for the "old people and babies will eat dog food" next? LOL

[Your Nightmare]

Figure this will add some more to the picture?

No, I was talking about tax revenues as a percentage of GDP, your chart shows effective tax rates (and most of them estimated). Another irrelevant cut & pastie from AG. What a shock.