Let's talk about tax fairness. People complain that the rich don't pay "their fair share." I'm curious to know what is meant by "fair share" here. I honestly don't know what they mean by invoking that phrase in this context.
For example, suppose that by "fair share" we mean something like the following: If, say, the top 20% of income earners earned 50% of total income, then they should pay 50% of all income taxes. You earn half the income, you pay half of all the taxes. That seems to me at least like one plausible notion of "fair share," especially if you believe that high earners pay less than their proportion of total earnings.
But here's the "problem:" the 2015 tax data tell an interesting story in this regard.
"In 2015, the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers (those with Adjusted Gross Income below $39,275) earned 11.28 percent of total AGI. This group of taxpayers paid approximately $41 billion in taxes, or 2.83 percent of all income taxes in 2015.
In contrast, the top 1 percent of all taxpayers (taxpayers with AGI of $480,930 and above), earned 20.65 percent of all AGI in 2015, but paid 39.04 percent of all federal income taxes.
In 2015, the top 1 percent of taxpayers accounted for more income taxes paid than the bottom 90 percent combined. The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid $568 billion, or 39.04 percent of all income taxes, while the bottom 90 percent paid $428 billion, or 29.41 percent of all income taxes."
Given those data about federal income taxes, do the rich really not pay their "fair share?" And at what rate would they do so (ignoring for the moment whether a higher rate would lead to less income earned)? If paying a percentage of total federal income tax revenue that is double the percentage of income they earned is not sufficient to be "paying their fair share," what would be?