August 18, 2009
"Income Share for Richest in U.S. Set Record for 2007, Study Says"
By Ryan J. Donmoyer
Groups such as the Washington-based Tax Foundation, a Republican-leaning research organization, says such analyses exaggerate income inequality because they measure pretax income. ...
The top 0.1 percent of households, a broader measure than the 0.01 percent used by Saez, pays about 20 percent of all income taxes while the bottom 50 percent of the population pays less than 3 percent, the foundation says.
"The 2007 numbers show that the top 1 percent's income and tax shares reached all-time highs for the third year in a row," Tax Foundation economist Gerald Prante wrote in an analysis last month. "That is likely to reverse direction when data from recessionary 2008 is published a year from now."