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You start by saying that wealthy people can pretty freely manipulate the amount of income they show for tax purposes.

The follow-up is that based on the manipulated income data, wealthy people pay disproportionately more taxes?

Right. The current low rates provide much stronger incentives to accurately report income vs. less efficient tax shelters and in-lieu-of-cash benefits. So we expect taxable income statistics to more accurately capture real earnings than under earlier tax regimes (particularly pre-1986).

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