April 13, 2009 02:25 PM | Permalink | 
Many politicians, pundits and media outlets have recently claimed that the richest one percent of American taxpayers are providing a hugely disproportionate share of the tax revenue we need to fund public services. New data from Citizens for Tax Justice show that this simply is not true. CTJ estimates that the share of total taxes (federal state and local taxes) paid by taxpayers in each income group is quite similar to the share of total income received by each income group in 2008.
The total federal, state and local effective tax rate for the richest one percent of Americans (30.9 percent) is only slightly higher than the average effective tax rate for the remaining 99 percent of Americans (29.4 percent).
From the middle-income ranges upward, total effective tax rates are virtually flat across income groups.
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