Gerald Prante of The Tax Policy Blog published a schedule showing the amounts and the percentages of 12 categories of taxes paid by U.S. taxpayers and businesses:
| Tax Source |
2007 Amount |
Share of Total | |
| Federal Individual Income Tax | 1,167.3 | 30.2% | |
| Payroll Taxes (e.g. S.S. taxes) | 891.2 | 23.0% | |
| Federal Excise Taxes (e.g. cigs) | 97.7 | 2.5% | |
| Federal Corporate Income Tax | 379.4 | 9.8% | |
| Federal Estate Tax | 26.5 | 0.7% | |
| S/L Individual Income Tax | 298.3 | 7.7% | |
| S/L General Sales Taxes | 300.1 | 7.8% | |
| S/L Selective Sales Taxes | 136.4 | 3.5% | |
| S/L Corporate Income Taxes | 60.9 | 1.6% | |
| S/L Property Taxes (excl. personal) | 390.9 | 10.1% | |
| S/L Other Taxes | 122.5 | 3.2% |
*S/L stands for “state/local.”
A few observations:
- Without the Income Tax (or a replacement like a national sales tax) the government goes broke
- Estate tax is less than 1% of total tax revenue. So why does the left make such a stink about it? Could it be political symbolism?
- Property taxes are 10% of total tax revenues. This is higher than I thought it would be, but because of the housing crisis I expect it to represent a lesser share of total tax revenues in 2008 and 2009.
Prante’s table includes an assessment of the relative progressivity/regressivity of each of the 12 tax categories.
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