More than 77 million American households won't pay one red cent in federal individual income taxes this year – half because they've got no taxable income, the other half because they get enough tax breaks to wipe out their liability.
Citing data from the
Tax Policy Center, Market Watch
reports an estimated 45.3 percent of American households will get off scot-free on April 15 for their federal income taxes – and that surprisingly, people in the top 1 percent of taxpayers, despite the bad rap they get for dodging Uncle Sam, pay a higher effective income tax rate than any other group.
In 2014, that rate paid by the super-wealthy was around 23 percent – nearly seven times higher than those in the bottom 50 percent, Market Watch reports; on average, those in the bottom 40 percent of the income spectrum end up getting money from the government.
Meanwhile, the richest 20 percent of Americans pay the most in income taxes, Market Watch reports, forking over nearly 87 percent of all the income tax collected.
The top 1 percent, who have an average income of more than $2.1 million, pay 43.6 percent of all the federal individual income tax in the United States, Market Watch reports.