Federal Income Taxes on Middle-Income Families at Historically Low Levels

By Chuck Marr and Gillian Brunet
Tax Policy Center
April 14, 2010

Middle-income Americans are now paying federal taxes at or near historically low levels, according to the latest available data. That’s true whether it comes to their federal income taxes or their total federal taxes.

Income taxes: A family of four in the exact middle of the income spectrum will pay only 4.6 percent of its income in federal income taxes this year, according to a new analysis by the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center. This is the second-lowest percentage in the past 50 years.

In 2000, the year before the 2001 tax cut that President Bush and Congress enacted, the median-income family of four paid 8.0 percent of its income in individual income taxes, according to Tax Policy Center estimates — a smaller share than in any year since 1967 (except for 1998 and 1999). The Bush tax cuts further reduced middle-income tax obligations.

(Original here.)