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Americans think they pay too much in taxes. Here’s who pays the most and least to the IRS
Most Americans think they pay too much in federal income taxes — and about 6 in 10 mistakenly believe middle-income households shoulder the highest tax burden.
In fact, only about 18% of adults correctly identified the group facing the highest federal tax burden, which are high-income Americans, according to a January poll from AP-NORC.
With less than one week left to file tax returns for 2023, taxes are on the mind of millions of Americans, with many expecting tax refunds, and others dinged with an IOU with the IRS. Only about 27% of taxpayers believe their federal income taxes are fair, with 60% believing their tax burden is too high, AP-NORC found.
In fact, the U.S. tax system is designed to be progressive, meaning that lower-income Americans pay a smaller share of their income in federal taxes than high-income workers, noted Alex Muresianu, senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, a think tank focused on tax issues.
“Raising another dollar from someone who’s higher income is not as going to be as much of a burden to them as raising another dollar from someone who’s lower income,” Muresianu said.
At the same time, there’s a push from some lawmakers and policy experts to boost tax rates for the rich, with President Joe Biden proposing to reverse a rate reduction for the nation’s top earners that was part of the 2017’s Tax Cuts & Jobs Act. Under Biden’s proposal, the top marginal rate would return to 39.6% from its current 37%.
The typical earner paid $14,279 in federal income taxes, with an average tax rate of 14.9%, in 2021, the most recent data available, according to a recent Tax Foundation analysis of IRS data. Federal taxes don’t include the payroll tax that covers Social Security and Medicare.
But it’s the top 50% of earners who contribute almost all of the nation’s federal taxes, at nearly 98%. The bottom 50%, who individually make below $46,637 annually, pay about 2.3% of the country’s tax receipts.
The top 10%, with incomes of at least $169,800, pay about three-quarters of the nation’s tax bill, the analysis found.
Even though most Americans believe the middle class bears the heaviest tax burden, it’s actually the top 1% who pay the highest federal tax rate, at 25.9%, the Tax Foundation analysis found.
Even so, about 6 in 10 Americans said they were bothered by the feeling that corporations and the rich aren’t paying their fair share in taxes, Pew Research found last year. That may explain why about two-thirds of those polled said they support higher taxes on the rich.
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Sen. Mark Kelly says feds need to do a “better job” of letting Americans know “there’s a huge amount of misinformation” on election
Washington — Sen. Mark Kelly said Sunday that the federal government needs to do its part to inform Americans of the vast swath of election misinformation that’s being consumed on social media platforms like X, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram.
“It’s up to us, the people who serve in Congress and in the White House to get the information out there, that there is a tremendous amount of misinformation in this election, and it’s not going to stop on Nov. 5,” Kelly said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
Kelly, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he’s seen these misinformation operations target not only his state of Arizona, but also other battleground states.
“There is a very reasonable chance I would put it in the 20 to 30% range, that the content you are seeing, the comments you are seeing, are coming from one of those three countries: Russia, Iran, China,” Kelly said.
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In a committee hearing last month on foreign threats to the 2024 election, Kelly presented screenshots of Russian-made web pages showing fabricated headlines designed to look like Fox News and The Washington Post, targeted at voters in battleground states.
“So my constituents in Arizona and others — they seek to influence the outcome of these elections, and that is absolutely beyond the pale,” Kelly said at the Sept. 18 hearing. “We’ve got to do something about it.”
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump each have the support of 49% of Arizona voters, according to CBS News’ battleground tracker as of Sept. 30.
In another battleground state, Pennsylvania, Trump returned Saturday to hold a rally in Butler three months after an attempted assassination on him. He was joined by members of his own party and billionaire Elon Musk, who said Trump was the only way to preserve democracy and warned of a last election if he does not win in November.
Speaking to CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, Kelly called the social media mogul a hypocrite.
“He’s standing next to the guy that tried to overturn the 2020 election on Jan. 6, saying that this is somehow going to be the last election and they’re going to take away your vote,” Kelly said. “And you know, it just doesn’t pass the logic test.”
At the White House press briefing on Friday, President Biden – speaking from the podium for the first time since taking office – said he’s confident of a free and fair election but alluded to the 2021 insurrection at the Capitol in his concerns on whether it will be a peaceful transfer of power.
“The things that Trump has said and the things that he said last time out when he didn’t like the outcome of the election were very dangerous,” Mr. Biden said. “If you notice, I noticed that the vice-presidential Republican candidate did not say he’d accept the outcome of the election, and they haven’t even accepted the outcome of the last election.”
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