Marginal 50% Tax Rate

If enacted, People’s Lobby’s  Fair Tax Bracket Re-institution Act (FTBRA) would add an IRS tax bracket so that:

  1. Those amounts earned over $5 million annually will be taxed at a 50% flat rate
  2. Those amounts earned over $10 million annually will be taxed at a 70% flat rate.
  3. These will be flat tax rate brackets with no deductions, so that loopholes do not allow the effective tax rate to be significantly less than IRS codes purportedly call for on the rich.

The $5 million household would have to struggle by on a net income of about $4 million per year; the $200 million household on about $126,500,000 per year;  the $1 billion household on about $646,500,000 per year.

If we had kept the site even more progressive tax rates that existed during the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Nixon administrations, we would not have the wealth disparity and economic breakdowns that we are having today.

If FTBRA existed, net income would look something like this.
Income Ested Tax % FTBRA % FTBRA % Net Ested
20% 50% 70% Income
$1,000,000 $200,000 $800,000
$2,000,000 $400,000 $1,600,000
$3,000,000 $600,000 $2,400,000
$4,000,000 $800,000 $3,200,000
$5,000,000 $1,000,000 $4,000,000
$10,000,000 $1,000,000 $2,500,000 $6,500,000
$20,000,000 $1,000,000 $2,500,000 $7,000,000 $9,500,000
$50,000,000 $1,000,000 $2,500,000 $21,000,000 $25,500,000
$100,000,000 $1,000,000 $2,500,000 $35,000,000 $61,500,000
$200,000,000 $1,000,000 $2,500,000 $70,000,000 $126,500,000
$500,000,000 $1,000,000 $2,500,000 $210,000,000 $286,500,000
$1,000,000,000 $1,000,000 $2,500,000 $350,000,000 $646,500,000
The second thing to note is that the overall tax rates are really not that high. Contrary to concerns about socialism or a government takeover, the richest Americans, those earning an average of $345 million in 2007, paid about 16.5 percent in federal income taxes.

Today’s top tax bracket, depending on whether Bush’s tax cuts expire or not in January 2011, are supposed to pay 35% now or 39.6% if the Clinton rates are reinstated.

As a recent IRS tax analysis by the Quick & the ED shows:  “The second thing to note is that the overall tax rates are really not that high. Contrary to concerns about socialism or a government takeover, the richest Americans, those earning an average of $345 million in 2007, paid about 16.5 percent in federal income taxes.”  http://www.quickanded.com/2010/02/effective-tax-rates-of-the-richest-400-americans.html

Forbes comes to a similar conclusion, as do tax experts like Author David Cay Johnston of Perfectly Legal

Richest 400 Earn More, Pay Lower Tax Rate

Janet Novack, 01.29.09, 05:00 PM EST

Top earners on average pulled in $263 million each in 2006, the IRS reports.

WASHINGTON, D.C.–The 400 highest-earning taxpayers in the U.S. reported a record $105 billion in total adjusted gross income in 2006, but they paid just $18 billion in tax, new Internal Revenue Service figures show. That works out to an average federal income tax bite of 17%–the lowest rate paid by the richest 400 during the 15-year period covered by the IRS statistics. The average federal tax bite on the top 400 was 30% in 1995 and 23% in 2002.  http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/29/irs-high-income-personal-finance-taxes_0129_wealthy_americans.html