Who Is Paying Their ‘Fair Share’?

theatlantic.com

5 pointssmacktoward5 comments

Left out of the charts, is the entire 19th century up until 1913. Under a regime of NO income tax, the United States moved from a rural, agrarian society to the worlds leader in oil, steel, autos, airplanes, radios, telephones etc. Immigrants, like my grandmother, who arrived penniless in 1911, flocked to the country. But that was before we became 'progressive'.

Also left out is the 21-point drop initiated by JFK.

And the effective marginal rates imposed via AMT for many years.

Neither fact fits The Atlantic's narrative.

Elaborate?

JFK's administration dropped the top marginal rate from 71% to 50%.

So just an irrelevant factoid. Sigh. For a moment I thought someone had found enough data to compute effective marginal rates. That would have been interesting.

The marginal rate on its own, without the rules that are used to compute the taxable income, is IMO about as meaningful as the wordcount of the rules.

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