Data on the Distribution of Federal Taxes and Household Income
April 2009

Current Estimates:  pdf  data

This page contains CBO's most recent estimates of federal effective tax rates (taxes as a percentage of income) across household income groups for the four largest sources of federal revenues--individual income taxes, social insurance (payroll) taxes, corporate income taxes, and excise taxes--as well as the total effective rate for the four taxes combined. The page also contains estimates of average before- and after-tax household income, counts of households, and shares of taxes, income, and households for each income group; information relating to the methodology used to construct the estimates; supplementary estimates for different household types; and a comparison of income and payroll taxes.

As this bar chart shows, effective federal tax rates--taxes as a percentage of income--rise across the income distribution, from 4.3 percent for the bottom fifth of households to 25.8 for the top fifth.

This chart shows the share of income earned, and taxes paid, by each fifth of the income distribution. The highest-income households earn a disproportionate share of the income and pay an even greater share of taxes.

<< additional charts >>

Historical Effective Federal Tax Rates and Income, by Income Category (1979-2006)

Effective Tax Ratespdfdata

Share of Taxes Paidpdfdata

Average Before-Tax Household Incomepdfdata

Average After-Tax Household Incomepdfdata

Shares of Before-Tax Incomepdfdata

Shares of After-Tax Incomepdfdata

Income Ranges for Each Income Classpdfdata

All of the Above Informationpdfdata

Methodology

Data Sources and Assumptionspdf

Issues to Consider for Distributional Analysis (CBO Director’s Blog, December 2007)

Effective Tax Rates: Comparing Annual and Multiyear Measures (January 2005)

Supplementary Information

Additional Data on Sources of Income and High-Income Households, 1979-2005pdfdata

Distribution of Income and Taxes by Type of Household (1979-2006)

Households Paying More in Payroll Taxes Than Income Taxes (2006)pdfdata

Median Before-Tax and After-Tax Household Income, 1979-2006pdfdata

Sources of Income by Income Category, 1979-2006pdfdata