Democrats have claimed that the GOP Tax Cuts and Jobs Act benefits the wealthy and does little for middle class families.
This claim is false. After passage of TCJA, the tax code is steeply progressive as noted in an analysis by the Treasury Department:
- In 2018, the top 10 percent of wage earners (with annual income of $123,716) pay 82.6 percent of federal income taxes and 61.2 percent of all federal taxes.
- The top 10 percent of wage earners pay an average federal tax rate of 25.2 percent and an average individual income tax rate of 16.5 percent.
- The top 1 percent pay 29.8 percent of federal taxes and 45.9 percent of federal income taxes.
- The top 30 percent of wage earners pay 87 percent of federal taxes and 104.1 percent of federal income taxes.
- The median quintile of wage earners (wage earners between 40 and 60 percent of earners) pay 6.3 percent of federal taxes and 0.6 percent of individual income taxes.
- The median quintile of wage earners pay an average federal tax rate of 9.9 percent.