For Immediate Release: Thursday, May 10, 2012
Contact: Phoebe Silag or Karen Conner, news@epi.org 202-775-8810
Taxes have fallen furthest for those at the very top
With the Bush tax cuts scheduled to expire on Jan. 1, 2013, tax fairness is likely to be a prominent topic throughout the presidential campaign. Today’s Snapshot shows that since 1995, average effective tax rates have declined more for high-income households, falling more than 9 percentage points for the top 0.01 percent of households and more than 6 percentage points for other households in the top 1 percent. Effective tax rates have also fallen for households between the 20th and 99th percentile, but by less than 3 percentage points.