The top 1 percent of Americans pay 45.1% of all federal, state, and local taxes

As legislators in San Jose and Sacramento prepare to increase taxes on the state's wealthiest, they make false claims that top earners aren't paying their "fair share." It's not true, as John Early explains in the Wall Street Journal.

The claim that rich Americans pay a smaller share of their income in taxes than any other householders is verifiably false. As a percentage of income earned and received in transfer payments, taxes rise steadily from 5.1% in the bottom quintile of households to 39.6% in the top 1%. The top 1% paid 45.1% of all federal, state, and local taxes.

To be sure, the average household in the top 1% retains almost 18 times as much income after taxes and transfer payments as the average bottom-quintile household. But it pays more than 219 times as much in taxes. Even at the very top of the income distribution, the average household in the top 0.1% has more than 31 times as much income as the average bottom-quintile household, but pays almost 482 times as much in total taxes.

Read the whole thing (behind paywall) here.

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