House Republicans would rather point the finger at middle- and lower-income Americans than ask the very wealthy to contribute a little bit more. Yet the facts couldn’t be more clear about who has benefited from the tax code in recent years:
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1,470 millionaires paid no income taxes in 2009. That’s a 53 percent jump from 2007. (Internal Revenue Service )
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A quarter of all millionaires (94,500 taxpayers) paid a lower tax rate than 10.4 million taxpayers who earn less than $100,000 a year. (Congressional Research Service, October 2011)
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The effective federal income tax rate of the wealthiest 400 taxpayers dropped from 29 percent in 1993 to 18 percent in 2008. The average adjusted gross income of those 400 households was $271 million. (Internal Revenue Service )
