income tax, most of the action is in taxes on ordinary income.
The highest marginal income tax rate oscillated up and down from 1979 to 2011. In 1979 during the Carter presidency, it was 70 percent, then it fell to 50 percent and to 28 percent in the Reagan/Bush years. It then rose to 39.6 percent in the 1990s under the Clinton presidency and fell again to 35 percent from 2003 to 2010. (It is now back up to 39.6 percent.) The highest rate on capital gains moved within a narrower band, beginning at 28 percent in 1979 and falling as low as 15 percent from 2005 to 2011. (The top rate is currently 23.5 percent.)
Over this period, regardless of the tax rates, the top 1 percent of the income distribution lost 1 percent to 2 percent of their income share due to taxes. In 1980, that group claimed 9 percent of before-tax income and 8 percent of after-tax income; in 1990 the figures were 12 percent and 11 percent; and in 2010, 15 percent and 13 percent. The top 10 percent of the income distribution generally lost 2 percent to 4 percent of their income share due to taxes, probably because those households take a greater share of their income (compared with the 1 percent) in salaries rather than in capital gains. At the other end, the poorest quintiles gained almost nothing (about 1 percent on average) in income shares due to cash and in-kind transfers from the government. In 2011, for example, the poorest 20 percent of households received 5 percent of (pretax) national income and 6 percent of after-tax income. That pattern was stable and consistent throughout the period.
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