61% of Individuals paid no federal revenue taxes in 2020, Tax Coverage Middle says

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61% of Individuals paid no federal revenue taxes in 2020, Tax Coverage Middle says

John Ewing | Portland Press Herald | Getty PicturesGreater than 100 million U.S. households, or 61% of all taxpayers, paid no federal revenue taxes


John Ewing | Portland Press Herald | Getty Pictures

Greater than 100 million U.S. households, or 61% of all taxpayers, paid no federal revenue taxes final yr, in line with a brand new report.

The pandemic and federal stimulus led to an enormous spike within the variety of Individuals who both owed no federal revenue tax or obtained tax credit from the federal government. In keeping with the City-Brookings Tax Coverage Middle, 107 million households owed no revenue taxes in 2020, up from 76 million — or 44% of all taxpayers — in 2019.

“It is a actually large quantity,” mentioned Howard Gleckman, senior fellow within the Tax Coverage Middle. “It is also actually transitory.”

Gleckman mentioned the principle causes for the spike — excessive unemployment, massive stimulus checks and beneficiant tax credit score packages — will largely expire after 2022, so the share of nontaxpayers will fall once more beginning subsequent yr.

The share of Individuals who pay zero revenue taxes is anticipated to remain excessive, at round 57% this yr, in line with the Tax Coverage Middle. It is anticipated to fall again right down to 42% in 2022 and stay at round 41% or 42% by means of 2025, “assuming the economic system continues to rebound and a number of other momentary tax advantages expire as scheduled,” Gleckman mentioned.

Regardless of being fleeting, the excessive variety of nontaxpayers is bound to gasoline the controversy in Congress over increased taxes on the rich. Many Democrats say the rich do not pay their justifiable share, and cite a sequence of current articles in ProPublica displaying that billionaires together with Jeff Bezos and Carl Icahn paid no federal revenue taxes in sure years. The $3.5 trillion reconciliation invoice in Congress is anticipated to incorporate will increase in capital features taxes, the next high charge on bizarre revenue, the next company tax charge and different measures aimed toward these making $400,000 or extra.

Some Republicans argue that the tax construction is already progressive and depends closely on income from a small group of excessive earners and corporations on the high, whereas many Individuals pay little or no taxes. The share of Individuals who pay no federal revenue taxes has been hovering round 44% for a lot of the final decade, in line with the Tax Coverage Middle.

The highest 20% of taxpayers paid 78% of federal revenue taxes in 2020, in line with the Tax Coverage Middle, up from 68% in 2019. The highest 1% of taxpayers paid 28% of taxes in 2020, up from 25% in 2019.

For 2021, Congress elevated the dimensions of the kid tax credit score, the earned revenue tax credit score, and the kid and the dependent care tax credit score — all of which erased the federal taxes owed for thousands and thousands of American households.

No family making lower than $28,000 can pay any federal taxes this yr because of the credit and tax adjustments, in line with the Tax Coverage Middle. Amongst middle-income households, about 43% can pay no federal revenue tax.  

The offsets to revenue taxes final yr had been small for a lot of households, in greenback phrases, Gleckman mentioned.

“Think about any individual who would have owed $1,500 in 2020 revenue tax till they acquired two stimulus funds — $1,200 in April and $600 in December,” he mentioned. “That threw them into the class of nonpayers. Whereas the funds resulted in a big share enhance of their after-tax revenue, the greenback quantity of their tax lower was solely a tiny fraction of a high-income filer who obtained a tax lower of, say, $30,000 from the 2017 [Tax Cuts and Jobs Act], but nonetheless owed some tax.”

Federal revenue taxes don’t embrace payroll taxes. The Tax Coverage Middle estimates that solely 20% of households paid neither federal revenue taxes nor payroll taxes. And “almost everybody” paid another type of taxes, together with state and native gross sales taxes, excise taxes, property taxes and state revenue taxes, in line with the report.



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