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Individual Income Taxes
About This Indicator
What Are Individual Income Taxes?
Federal taxes on people's income, in billions of dollars at an annual rate, from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Quarterly since 1947, estimated back to 1929.
Why Does It Matter?
It is usually the largest federal revenue source, and most workers see it withheld from each paycheck. It swings with markets, since top earners, whose pay rides on capital gains and bonuses, pay much of it.
Can Politics Influence Them?
Rates and brackets change often, up and down. A cut passed by reconciliation needs only a simple Senate majority but cannot raise deficits past the budget window, usually ten years, so the 2001 and 2017 individual cuts were written to expire.
Key Idea
Because it takes a larger share of larger incomes, collections rise faster than incomes in booms and fall faster in busts, so take-home pay falls less than pay: a cushion that works before any vote.
Not Scored
Source: BEA. NIPA Table 3.2 (A074RC).
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