Tax Lawyer's Blog

This is beautiful because it exposes the left’s lie that the rich have not paid their fair share of taxes during the Bush tax cut years. In fact, it is so good that I predict it will be immediately and roundly denounced by the left as right-wing propaganda.

Nick Gillespie of Reason reports that from 2000 through 2008 the share of taxes paid by the rich increased while the share of taxes paid by the middle class and poor decreased:

For all the yammering about the wisdom or tragedy of extending Bush-era tax rates, precious little hot air has been expended on, like, looking at what effects the goddamn things had on who paid how much tax. Back during the 2008 election, Joe Biden used to say that it was “patriotic” to ask the rich to pay “their fair share” in taxes. What that widely repeated nostrum misses is that the rich (however defined) have been paying a greater share of income taxes in the aughts.

Below is a chart from the Tax Foundation that lists the percent of federal income tax paid by each income group. Whatever else you want to say about the Bush tax rates, they made the wealthy pony up more of the whole.

Percent of Federal Income Tax Paid by Each Group

 Year                          Top .01       Top 1%          Top 5%          5-10%            Top 10%        10-25%           Top 25%      25-50%           Top 50%        Bot 50%

2000			37.42%	56.47%	10.86%	67.33%	16.68%	84.01%	12.08%	96.09%	3.91%
2001		16.06%	33.89%	53.25%	11.64%	64.89%	18.01%	82.90%	13.13%	96.03%	3.97%
2002		15.43%	33.71%	53.80%	11.94%	65.73%	18.16%	83.90%	12.60%	96.50%	3.50%
2003		15.68%	34.27%	54.36%	11.48%	65.84%	18.04%	83.88%	12.65%	96.54%	3.46%
2004		17.44%	36.89%	57.13%	11.07%	68.19%	16.67%	84.86%	11.85%	96.70%	3.30%
2005		19.26%	39.38%	59.67%	10.63%	70.30%	15.69%	85.99%	10.94%	96.93%	3.07%
2006		19.56%	39.89%	60.14%	10.65%	70.79%	15.47%	86.27%	10.75%	97.01%	2.99%
2007		20.19%	40.41%	60.61%	10.59%	71.20%	15.37%	86.57%	10.54%	97.11%	2.89%
2008		18.47%	38.02%	58.72%	11.22%	69.94%	16.40%	86.34%	10.96%	97.30%	2.70%

How has it come to be that we have a tax structure that forces 10% of the people to pay 60% of the nation’s taxes yet we still have people who accuse the 10% of being money-grabbers and con artists simply because they oppose policies that would force them to pay an even greater percentage of the nation’s taxes?

Could it be that no amount of tax contribution by the rich will ever satisfy the class warfarists among us?

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