Derek Thompson: A Brief Visual History of U.S. Taxes
[Derek Thompson is an associate editor at The Atlantic, where he writes about economics, business, and technology. Derek has also written for BusinessWeek, Slate and The Daily Beast.]
Tax reform might be The Issue of 2011. Or, like most years, it might linger on the sidelines of the national debate, but never press its way into the limelight. Either way, the Senate Finance Committee is hearing the case for tax reform today -- and who better to hear from first than the head of the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress' official oracle and arbiter of tax policy.
You can download the full testimony here, but I wanted to pass along four easy charts from the presentation that explain some major developments in the tax code over the last 40 years. I don't want to say too much, as these charts speak for themselves.
Observation 1: The Flattening of the Tax Code. The individual income tax code has flattened out considerably in the last few decades. After the Reagan tax reforms ended in the late 1980s, President George H. W. Bush and President Clinton raised taxes in the Omnibus bills of 1991 and 1993 to fight back a possible deficit crisis. Twenty years later, we still have the lowest tax rates in modern history for middle and upper-middle class families making between $50,000 and $200,000....
Read entire article at The Atlantic
Tax reform might be The Issue of 2011. Or, like most years, it might linger on the sidelines of the national debate, but never press its way into the limelight. Either way, the Senate Finance Committee is hearing the case for tax reform today -- and who better to hear from first than the head of the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress' official oracle and arbiter of tax policy.
You can download the full testimony here, but I wanted to pass along four easy charts from the presentation that explain some major developments in the tax code over the last 40 years. I don't want to say too much, as these charts speak for themselves.
Observation 1: The Flattening of the Tax Code. The individual income tax code has flattened out considerably in the last few decades. After the Reagan tax reforms ended in the late 1980s, President George H. W. Bush and President Clinton raised taxes in the Omnibus bills of 1991 and 1993 to fight back a possible deficit crisis. Twenty years later, we still have the lowest tax rates in modern history for middle and upper-middle class families making between $50,000 and $200,000....