Chart assignment
Charts to read and discuss
Read each chart, then answer its questions. Every chart shows its source and date; open it for a table of the numbers and the data to download.
Chart 1 of 1 · Income tax
How much of the federal income tax does each income group pay?
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In tax year 2023, the 1% of tax returns with the highest incomes paid 38.4% of all federal income tax, the next 9% paid 32.1%, the next 40% paid 26.2% and the bottom 50% paid 3.3%. In tax year 2023, the top 1% reported 20.6% of all income and the bottom 50% reported 12.3%. Groups are tax returns ranked by adjusted gross income, leaving out returns of people claimed as someone's dependent; in 2023 the top 1% started at $675,602 of income and the top half at $53,801. Income tax here is what returns owed after credits, never below zero; refundable credits paid out as refunds and payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare aren't counted. IRS figures are estimates from a sample of returns and come out about two years after the tax year.
Questions to discuss
- In one sentence of your own, what does this chart show?
- Find the biggest change or difference in the chart. What might explain it?
- Who collected these numbers, and how recent are they? What else would you want to know before drawing a conclusion?
Source: IRS Statistics of Income, Table 4.1 (individual returns by income percentile) (Public domain (U.S. government work)) · Data as of Dec 31, 2023
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