For years, politicians have won elections by claiming a desire to tax “the rich” at higher rates. This incessant messaging has even percolated into the debate over campaign finance, where activists routinely claim that “the rich” are controlling American politics by their political spending.
But the actual tax distribution of the United States shows that those nasty “rich” are big losers in the game of wealth redistribution. The top 5 percent of earners are already paying 60 percent of all taxes. The top 20 percent of earners pay fully 80 percent of all tax receipts.
A recent Reason-Rupe poll found that only about 20 percent of Americans knew the actual share of federal income tax dollars paid by the top 5 percent of households, which is roughly 60 percent of all tax receipts.
