May 17, 2021 9:20PM 

# Taxes and Fair Shares 

By [Chris Edwards](https://www.cato.org/people/chris-edwards) 

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President Joe Biden [said](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/03/joe-biden-taxes-corporations-richest-americans) that the richest Americans should “start paying their fair share” of taxes and that his proposed tax increases would ensure that the “wealthiest 1% … just pay their fair share.”

Senator Elizabeth Warren [wants](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/20/elizabeth-warren-invites-leon-cooperman-to-testify-at-senate-hearing-on-taxes.html) to make “changes to our rigged tax code so that the wealthy pay their fair share.”

Senator Bernie Sanders [wants](https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/21/perspectives/bernie-sanders-tax-raises/index.html) to make sure that the “wealthiest people … begin to pay their fair share of taxes.”

To shed light on these statements, we can look at Congressional Budget Office [data](https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2020-10/56575-Household-Income.pdf) on federal tax shares by income group. The CBO chart below includes individual income taxes, corporate income taxes, payroll taxes, and excise taxes. The lowest-income three quintiles, or three-fifths of households, are grouped together. The top 1 percent has been split out of the top quintile.

The share of federal taxes paid by the top 1 percent increased from 14.1 percent in 1979 to 25.3 percent in 2017. The share paid by the overall top quintile (the 1 percent group plus the 81st to 99th percentile group) increased from 55.1 percent in 1979 to 69.2 percent in 2017. The share paid by the other four-fifths of households has fallen substantially.

For reporters, an obvious follow-up question when politicians say that high earners are not paying their fair share is: “How high do the top shares need to rise before they are fair?”

![s](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/pubs_2x/public/2021-05/cbo%20tax%20shares.png?itok=E55okEc4) 

Data for the CBO chart is available [here](https://www.cbo.gov/publication/56575).

Average tax rates by income group are discussed [here](https://www.cato.org/blog/tax-rates-income-level-0).

##### Related Tags 

[Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy), [Social Welfare and Poverty](https://www.cato.org/social-welfare-poverty) 

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