America's progressive tax: top 20% pay 87% of income tax

Another revealing article from the Wall Street Journal. Is this fair? Who's to say?  But the Trump tax reform has increased the % of tax the highest income earners will pay.

The results show how steeply progressive the U.S. income tax remains. For 2018, households in the top 20% will have income of about $150,000 or more and 52% of total income, about the same as in 2017. But they will pay about 87% of income taxes, up from about 84% last year.

By contrast, the lower 60% of households, who have income up to about $86,000, receive about 27% of income. As a group, this tier will pay no net federal income tax in 2018 vs. 2% of it last year.

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Roughly one million households in the top 1% will pay for 43% of income tax, up from 38% in 2017. These filers earn above about $730,000.

According to Roberton Williams, an income-tax specialist with the Tax Policy Center, the share of taxes paid by the top 5% will rise despite the fact that people in it were the largest beneficiaries of the overhaul’s tax cut, both in dollars and percentages.

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Why are income taxes negative for the 77 million households in the bottom two tiers, which earn 13% of income? In recent decades Congress has chosen to funnel benefits for lower earners through the income tax rather than other channels such as federal programs. Some of these, such as the earned-income tax credit for the low-income workers, make cash payments to filers who don’t owe income tax.

The tax overhaul further lowered the share of income tax for people in these tiers, in part because it nearly doubled the standard deduction and expanded the tax credit for children under the age of 17.