Obama Tax Plan and IRS Data

Senator Obama wants to “restore fairness to our tax code” by raising taxes on those earning more than $250,000. Let’s look at the most recent IRS income tax data for 2006 to see what we can learn about tax fairness.


See line 42 in this IRS table, which shows data for those earning less than $200,000 (the closest income breakpoint). This group paid 9.7 percent of their adjusted gross income in federal income taxes.


Now scroll down to line 58 in the table. Those earning more than $200,000 paid 21.8 percent of their income in income tax, thus paying more than twice the tax rate of the other group.


Is that fair?