Fred....any time you want to break out the pitchforks and torches I'm in. Just don't tell Jerry, I don't want to have to fork him.

Doug,

Over the time period mentioned in the article, the top 1%'s share of total income rose from 8% to almost 20%. If their share of income instead remained constant, reducing the top tax rates would indeed make the tax system less progressive, and an increase in the 1%'s share of income tax paid would be quite a conundrum. (You'd then need to call in other explanations, like increased closing of loopholes, to account for it.)

However, when the top 1%'s share of the total income more than doubles, it easily counteracts the lowering of their tax rates. Thus, once can claim the top 1% are paying an even greater share of total income taxes even though their rates were lowered.

While I generally agree with the idea that punitive tax rates will act as a deterrent to income (and an incentive to seek out tax havens), I think the article's "surge in taxes paid by the rich" is nearly entirely the result of the rich getting a much larger slice of the income pie.

Thanks Jeremy, it's always the little bits of info left out in some of these articles - that would provide great (and more honest) context - that make it harder to discern something resembling the truth. I appreciate the added context.

So, the super-rich have a bigger share of income and wealth due to a bunch of reasons

One thing is that banks have been deregulated, there are huge profits (when they're not going broke), and huge bonuses that create new super-rich. This is because of changes in government policy that were bought with political contributions.

Or the wages of CEOs have gone up astronomically. I bet there are some changed government policies that have helped. Since corporations are chartered by the government - they get some advantages like limited liability - in return they could make it easier for stockholders to reign in CEO salaries...

And there are hundreds of other government policies that help the super-rich.

If you're saying that since they make twice as much as they used to, they should pay half the tax rate, that doesn't make any sense.

When you concentrate the income and wealth, there isn't a huge middle class to buy stuff and create a healthy economy.

And it's not "punitive" tax rate on rich people - it's just the same as everyone else rather than a special low rate that they bought from the government

And get rid of all those other government policies they bought to get richer

Jeremy Bishop,

"Over the time period mentioned in the article, the top 1%'s share of total income rose from 8% to almost 20%"

Why the cute math? Isn't it enough to state the facts as they really exist? The real numbers should be good enough, no? No reason to round 17% to "almost 20%" now is there?

By the great amount of rounding we could just as easily call it 15%.

And unlike you, I will provide a source:
http://cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/10-25-HouseholdIncome.pdf

"Fred....any time you want to break out the pitchforks and torches I'm in. Just don't tell Jerry, I don't want to have to fork him."

Rick
Jerry is not a threat. He thinks the super rich make $250M and is distracted by "big oil". :-)
I worked for a guy that told me I should have more money than I could spend @ $50M a year with a stay at home mom and 2 kids in the metroplex. DEEE - lusional Didn't work there long.

I think you mean $250K

$250M has to be super-rich by anyone's measure

If you had $50M a year, I hope you could survive on that

We use the m at work for thousands. Habit

Me too Fred. M for thousands and MM for millions.

Wonder what all the gazzillionares use for their gazzillions? Prolly an R

"M for thousands and MM for millions"

Is that a banking/financial convention?

Michael,

I think the proper income number to use when wargaming the effects of tax rates is pre-tax income, not after-tax. I assume that your 17% number is that in page 22, Fig. 3 of your pdf, and is therefore representing after-tax income.

I will try posting some examples later, along with sources for pre-tax income share. Hitting precise numbers doesn't matter for the point I was trying to make to hold; I was initially going to post a simple counter-example with somewhat arbitrarily-chosen numbers.

"M for thousands and MM for millions"

"Is that a banking/financial convention?"

Indeed.

Oh and Gazillion would be MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

its a combination of roman numerals and algebra
M=1000

MM=M*M

I wish you guys would talk a lot more in terms of nett income and its buying power. That is all that the vast majority of people everywhere in the world actually see. Personally I don't really care what my tax rate is, as long as we have enough to get by. Now, what constitutes 'super-wealthy' is a silly argument to me, as humans seem to live to their means. I don't have a huge house in an expensive area, I don't own a yacht, we hardly ever even go out for dinner. But our quality of life is very high in non-material measures. Maybe a little less greed all around and a lot more living simply is what is needed to turn the economy around, rather than focusing on "growing the economy" whatever that means. Growing an economy can mean selling off natural resources, outsourcing jobs, investing in automation to replace real people, or anything else that increases GDP without necessarily improving the lot of the average citizen.

The problem I have is the price of milk and eggs has doubled.
I used to buy pants from LL Bean for $39 and they still have the same pants but now they are $69 and my salary has not changed. But you don't hear about that. There was a guy from the gov in the Bronx and he told the crowd there was no inflation because an IPAD II costs the same as what an IPAD used to cost but it's more powerful. A man in the crowd stood up and said "But we can't eat IPAD's"

Who ever gets in I hope the sincerely find a way to fix things.

If you can pay your bills, have enough left over for outside interests and beer, do you need any more?

What exactly did Reagan repair? He tripled the national debt.

"What exactly did Reagan repair? He tripled the national debt."

Repairing our sense of exceptionalism doesn't come cheap.