Rich Paid More Revenue Under Bush Tax Cuts

Rich Paid More Revenue Under Bush Tax Cuts

While progressives attack the Bush tax cuts and President Barack Obama wants to let them expire for families making over $250,000, figures released by the IRS show the wealthiest 1% actually paid more in taxes after the Bush tax cuts were passed, and the bottom half of taxpayers actually paid less in income taxes. 

According to IRS data, the “richest 1% paid $84 billion more in taxes in 2007 than they had in 2000,” a 23% increase. In addition, their “share of the overall income tax burden grew, climbing from 37% in 2000 to 40% in 2007.” All this occurred even though their rates went down. 

The IRS numbers also found the bottom half of taxpayers “paid $6 billion less in income taxes in 2007 than they had seven years earlier,” which is a 16% decrease, and “their share of the total income tax burden actually went from 3.9% to 2.9%.”

Further, as Investors Business Daily noted, the Bush tax cuts also pushed millions of people off of the tax rolls entirely because Bush “doubled the per-child tax credit to $1,000 and lowered the bottom rate to 10%.”

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