New U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data obtained by the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) show that the top one percent of American tax filers (by income) paid a larger share of federal personal income tax revenues in 1998 than the previous year.
“The data publicly released by the JEC today reflect the steeply progressive impact of the federal income tax,” said Vice Chairman Jim Saxton. The data show the distribution of the tax burden by income group, or, in other words, the share of total federal personal income taxes paid by each income group:
The top 10 percent of taxpayers by income had AGI of $83,220 or more. The top 50 percent of taxpayers had AGI of at least $25,491. The 4.21 percent share paid by the bottom half of taxpayers was virtually unchanged during this period.
Source: Tom Herman, Upper-Incom Taxpayers, Tax Report, Wall Street Journal, October 18, 2000; Press release, New IRS Data On Income Tax Shares Now Available, October 16, 2000, Joint Economic Committee.
For WSJ text http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB954881498554989467.htm
For IRS data http://www.house.gov/jec/press/2000/10-16-0.htm
For more on Tax Burden by Income Group
http://www.ncpa.org/pi/taxes/tax33.html#1
