According to a White House report released yesterday, 22,000 households made more than $1 million in 2009 and paid less than 15 percent in income taxes.
The report cited an Internal Revenue Service study on the 400 U.S. taxpayers with the highest incomes in 2008, at $110 million or higher. Those people paid an average tax rate of 18.1 percent, excluding payroll taxes, down from 29.9 percent in 1995. Families in the middle 20 percent of the income distribution paid 16 percent in federal taxes in 2010, according to the report.
Under current law, ordinary income, including profits from small businesses, is taxed at rates up to 35 percent. Capital gains and dividends are taxed at no more than 15 percent.
The proposal isn’t designed with the average high-earning household in mind, Jason Furman, deputy director of Obama’s National Economic Council, said. Instead, he said, the goal is to raise taxes for the relatively few taxpayers who can use multiple tax breaks to lower their rates.
Read the whole story at the Washington Post
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