Top Earners Averaged $345 Million in 2007, IRS Says

[frigidmagi]

Businessweek


[quote]The average income reported by the 400 highest-earning U.S. households grew to almost $345 million in 2007, up 31 percent from a year earlier, Internal Revenue Service statistics show.

The figures for 2007, the last year of an economic expansion, show that average income reported by the top 400 earners more than doubled from $131.1 million in 2001. That year, Congress adopted tax cuts urged by then-President George W. Bush that Democrats say disproportionately benefits the wealthy.

Each household in the top 400 of earners paid an average tax rate of 16.6 percent, the lowest since the agency began tracking the data in 1992, the statistics show. Their average effective tax rate was about half the 29.4 percent in 1993, the first year of President Bill Clinton’s administration, when taxes were increased.

The statistics underscore “two long-term trends: that income at the very top has exploded and their taxes have been cut dramatically,â€

[SirNitram]

I hate the idea of wealth distribution for the purpose of having wealth distribution. That is merely wasteful. HOWEVER, for the purpose of the General Welfare, it is a good thing to do. For those who embrace such, as in Americans supporting the Constitution, the General Welfare is in the preamble as what must be dealt with by the government.