If Corporations and Richest Americans were Taxed at 1961 Rates, U.S. Would Gain $716 Billion a Year

Tuesday, July 26, 2011
One way to help solve the federal deficit problem is to turn back the clock on tax rates for corporations and the wealthy, which could yield three quarters of a trillion dollars more for the U.S. Treasury annually.
 
Researchers at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) concluded that if corporations and households earning $1 million or more in income each year paid taxes at the 1961 rate imposed by the IRS, the government would have an additional $716 billion a year to spend.
In 1961, the average American household earning more than $1 million a year (adjusted for 2011 dollars) paid 43.1% of their reported income in taxes. By 2011, that figure will have dropped to 23.1%. If these wealthiest Americans went back to paying at the 1961 rate, the U.S. government would raise an extra $231 billion in revenue.
 
As for corporations, in 1961 they paid an average of 47.4% of their profits in taxes. This year that percentage will drop to 11.1. If the corporate tax rate reverted to the 1961 level, the United States would gain an extra $485 billion in tax revenues.
-David Wallechinsky, Noel Brinkerhoff
 
Plutocracy and the Debt Ceiling Debate (by Sam Pizzigati, Campaign for America’s Future)
Unnecessary Austerity, Unnecessary Shutdown (by Chuck Collins, Alison Goldberg, Scott Klinger and Sam Pizzigati, Institute for Policy Studies) (pdf)

Comments

K. M. 13 years ago
to say "the government would have an additional $716 billion a year to spend" will only give folks with a cutting agenda more "proof" that you can't raise taxes (that is, return them to sanity) because the evil government will only spend it. they're good at framing things around their sociopathic world view, so you have to be more explicit in these things. the money would not be "to spend," as if it were winning a lottery. it'd be for paying debt, rebuilding the infrastructure, providing jobs so that more people buy things so that businesses need to expand. and so on. most people are not selfish, though. they've just been given filters that color their view. so we have to be more explicit.
blang 13 years ago
wholesale emigration is already happening! wake up! http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2011/07/29/ge-hearts-china.aspx
Anonymouse 13 years ago
while being sympathetic to the idea, i can't help thinking that any effort to impose real taxes on the rich will be met with a yawn, a gop filibuster, or wholesale emigration.

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