Highest Marginal Income Tax Rates, 1913-2007
Submitted by CARPE DIEM
Been working on your inocme taxes for 2007? If you’re in a high income tax bracket (35% is the highest marginal rate for 2007), it could be a lot worse, you could be paying taxes at the rate of 91% like during the 1950s, or 70% during the 1960s (see chart above based on IRS data). Of course, it could be a lot better, like the 28% highest rate in the 1980s or the original maxiumum rate of 7% in 1913. (The average highest marginal tax rate since 1913 is 60.3%.)
Comment: Is is any wonder that the economic conditions in the 1930s turned from bad to worse, from a recession to the Great Depression, when the highest income tax rate was raised from 25% to almost 80% during that decade (see shaded area above)? Now that was a real “economic buzzkill.”
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