not the borrowing and printing part, the current payments part?
DLH forwards much of the answer in a dispatch from Terence P. Jeffrey, via Conservative News Service (CNS): Jeffrey reports on a study by the Congressional Budget Office regarding 2010 income tax filings.
“Much of the progressivity of the federal tax system derives from the individual income tax,” said the report. “In 2010, the lowest quintile’s (20%) average rate for the individual income tax was -9.2 percent and the second income quintile’s rate was -2.3 percent.”
“A group can have a negative income tax rate if its refundable tax credits exceed the income tax otherwise owed,” said the CBO report and as also explained in Jeffrey’s article.
The households in the top 20 percent by income paid 92.9 percent of net income tax revenues taken in by the federal government in 2010, said CBO. The households in the fourth quintile paid another 13.3 percent of net income tax revenues. Together, the top 40 percent of households paid 106.2 percent of the federal government’s net income tax revenue. . . .
The average after-tax income for American households in the bottom quintile in 2010 was $23,700, according to CBO. It then rose to $41,00 for households in the second quintile; $57,900 for households in the middle quintile; $80,600 for households in the fourth quintile; and $181,800 for households in the top quintile.
DLH
