k-12 Tax & $pending climate: “income tax system continues to be progressive”
New Internal Revenue Service data for tax year 2022 shows the US federal income tax system continues to be progressive as high-income taxpayers pay the highest average income tax rates. Average tax rates for all income groups remained lower in 2022, five years after the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), than they were in 2017 prior to the reform.
- In 2022, taxpayers filed 153.8 million tax returns, reported earning nearly $14.8 trillion in adjusted gross income(AGI), and paid $2.1 trillion in individual income taxes.
- The average income tax rate in 2022 was 14.5 percent. The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid a 23.1 percent average rate, six times higher than the 3.7 percent average rate paid by the bottom half of taxpayers.
