Taxes: the "Other 47 Percent"

From Brian Beutler at TPM:

Conservatives are continuing their counter-protest against the so-called "47 percent." Specifically, that's the share of recession-era households that pay no federal income taxes. Most of them pay payroll taxes and other federal taxes (not to mention state taxes), but Republicans have chosen to depict them as the free-riding half of the country.


The fact of the matter, though, is that those other taxes constitute a huge chunk of federal revenues. Check out the charts below. Over the 58 years preceding the Lesser Depression, the share of federal revenues that came from individual income taxes has remained fairly stable, fluctuating between 40 and 50 percent, and peaking just before George W. Bush slashed rates in 2001.

You can read the whole piece via this link.

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21 October 2011