One of the themes that Hillary Clinton repeatedly sounded during the recent debates was that the rich should pay their fair share.
To say that the rich should pay their fair share implies that they aren’t. The Democrats trot out this shopworn topic every presidential election. If they included the facts and still advocated that the rich should pay more, we’d have an honest disagreement. But they’re counting on people not knowing the facts in order to get their votes.
Clinton wants to raise taxes on people earning more that $250,000/year. According to the Tax Foundation, in 2014, the most recent year for which these figures are available, taxpayers in that category earned 28% of the total Adjusted Gross Income (AGI), but paid 55% of the total Federal income tax burden.
Pew Research Center puts the number at 51.6% and adds that this group comprised just 2.7% of the total Federal individual income tax returns filed. By contrast, Pew figures show that people earning $50,000 or less comprised 62.3% of the returns filed, but paid just 5.7% of the income tax total.
The National Taxpayers Union reports that the wealthiest 1%, who they define as those with AGI’s above $465,625, accounted for 20.58% of the total AGI, but paid 39.48% of the total Federal income tax.
Anyway you slice it, the rich are already paying a share of the Federal income taxes disproportionate to both their numbers and their income.