After Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wore a “Tax the Rich” dress to the $30,000 per-ticket Met Gala event, residents of AOC’s district were asked how much they think the rich do pay in taxes, and the results were in line with what you’d expect from a district that thought it would be a good idea to elect AOC to congress.
“We’re paying too much taxes,” one woman said. “The lower and middle classes, we’re working our butts off and we’re paying so much taxes, and then you’ve got the upper class and they’re not paying anything.”
Another resident unlikely to win the Nobel Prize for economics this October responded “The bottom percentile of individuals are probably paying the bulk of the taxes whereas you have millionaires and billionaires being able to avoid their share.” Another person added that the rich probably pay 5% in taxes.
Another person answered what he thinks the rich should pay – and it was a lower rate than what they already do.
Watch below:
An analysis from the Tax Policy Center found in 2019 that the top 1% paid 29.4% of their income solely federal income tax that year, while the middle income quintile paid an average rate of 13%. The second-lowest quintile paid 7.9% of their incomes in federal taxes, while the bottom 20% paid 3.2%. When federal benefits and credits are factored in, those in the lowest quintiles actually wind up having negative tax burdens. Factoring in payroll taxes and taxes on capital income, the top 1% pays an effective marginal tax rate of 39.9%, while the middle pays 30%, and the lowest quintile pays 14.9%. The inclusion of property taxes would boost the effective rate of higher earners further, but no lower quintiles who are more likely to rent.
As for the distribution of taxes, the latest data (which is from 2018) showed that the top 1% earns 20.9% of all income and pays 40.1% of the taxes.
Matt Palumbo is the author of The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of George Soros, Dumb and Dumber: How Cuomo and de Blasio Ruined New York, Debunk This: Shattering Liberal Lies, and Spygate
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