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Originally Posted by Kaefer
Not true. Tax rate on direct income hovered around 50%. The 70% of which you talk was the tax rate on "indirect income," i.e., dividends and interest.
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No, it was the personal income tax.
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfa...l/schedule.cfm
If you go back to the 1940s and 1950s, the top rate varied between 80% and 94%.
Then in the 1960s, it was lowered to 70% where it stayed until 1982 when Reagan lowered it first to 50%, then to 35%, and finally to 28%. At the time it was 28%, it was actually lower than the middle tax bracket which was 32% at the time. Clinton then raised it back up to 37%, and Dubya then lowered it back to 35% where I believe it currently stands.
BTW, do you know who first proposed the idea of a progressive income tax? I'll give you a hint. His initials are KM.