New IRS Data Expose Dems' Phony Tax-the-Rich Mantra

IBD reports:

Always several years behind the times, the IRS has only now put out data on the distribution of income earned and taxes paid for 2012. The data are nonetheless instructive, since 2012 was the last year before Obama engineered his tax hikes on the rich.

What the IRS numbers show is that far from being skewed toward the rich, the tax code has continued to get more progressive, to the point where by 2012 the top 1% of income earners accounted for 38% of all federal income taxes.

That's up from 33.2% in 2001, well before the "unfair" Bush tax cuts took effect, and far above the 29.5% average from 1986 to 2000.

And no, this increase isn't simply the result of a greater concentration of wealth.

In 2001, for example, the top 1% accounted for 17.4% of all income reported to the IRS. In 2009, their share was slightly lower at 17.2%. Over those same years, share of income taxes paid by this group went from 33% to 36%.

At the other end of the spectrum, the bottom half of all taxpayers was responsible for just 2.78% of federal income taxes in 2012, which is down from 4.9% in 2001.

Facts are stubborn things.