After hearing many discussions regarding the effect of reverting to the Clinton era federal income tax rates, I decided to estimate, using IRS tax tables, the effect for three hypothetical married couples filing jointly each with different taxable incomes.

See the accompanying table below for the results.

Superficially, at least, it seems the effect is not uniform among different income levels.

At first glance, it appears the higher income couple bears the least burden, as a percent of taxes paid, from the change.

Perhaps some Town Crier reader can explain why this isn’t so.

Thomas McCullough
Pine Cove

1 COMMENT

  1. The funny thing about discussing taxes is that there are too many variables involved to make any realistic predictions based on our current tax law. There are many anecdotal examples of what past changes have affected. There are some basic truths that we have seen like, if you over tax an activity it will be reduced, or that a higher tax rate doesn’t mean increased revenue. Because of this I have always thought a flat, percentage based tax with no deductions would be the most fair to the greatest number of people. This would also prevent politicians from playing funny games for the benefit of their “friends”