Who Pays?
Column Published in syndication May 22, 2024In fiscal year 2023, the US government collected about $4.7 trillion in total revenue, with roughly half ($2.35 trillion) derived from the much-maligned personal income tax. We don't have a detailed breakout yet, but the Tax Foundation recently released an analysis of individual income return statistics from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for 2021. Given the attention that taxes always manage to muster in election season and our current fiscal excesses, it's worth a brief review.