The Rich Have a Lower Tax Rate Lie

Another lie that keeps making the rounds is that somehow The Rich pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes than do middle class earners. This is simply not true. The data below is from the Congressional Budget Office (for the full CBO report click here) and shows average tax rates paid by income quintiles (and the top 1%) in 2009  for all federal taxes (income, social insurance, corporate and excise taxes).


Quintile             Avg Income       Avg Federal Tax Rate 

Lowest               $23,500                 1.0%
Middle                $64,300               11.1%
Highest                $223,500             23.2%
Top 1%               $1,219,700          28.9%

The President keeps talking about the "Buffett Rule"-- which would supposedly impose a tax rate of 30% on the highest earners. What effect do you think this would have given that those people are already paying 28.9% of their income in taxes?