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.
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
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)
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