Letter from Ron Bishop

Who Funds Our Government?

Who pays federal taxes? In principle, you might think the answer should be simple but, in practice, not so much. I’d like to shed some light on this so my neighbors and I, whatever public policies we may disagree on, can at least settle on one set of facts to help us communicate.

According to the Tax Foundation’s latest summary, the wealthiest tenth of Americans pulled in half of all the income and paid three-fourths of the federal taxes in 2022. The richest half of us earned 89 percent of the income and paid 97 percent of the taxes—and we’re not yet down to my family’s income bracket. So, when politicians of a certain party proclaim, “Rich people don’t pay their share of federal taxes,” we know what to think, right? Well, there’s more to the story.