The 400 highest-earning Americans had
a really good year in 2012, with their incomes rising by an average of $2.1 million ... a week. That's "time to Occupy Wall Street again" good, and rising incomes for the very wealthy isn't all. The invaluable David Cay Johnston reports that:
The tax returns of the top 400 earners reported average income of $335.7 million, a real increase of more than $111 million over 2011, a new IRS report reveals.
Even better for the top 400, their taxes came to just 16.7 percent of their adjusted gross income. [...]
Among the top 400, the IRS report shows that 32 paid nothing to 10 percent in income tax; 123 others paid under 15 percent.
This is a continuation of the rising income inequality that
cost middle-class families $18,000 a year in income between 1979 and 2007. And, as Johnston points out, this rising inequality and the accompanying low taxes for the super-wealthy are not some fluke of nature but are a result of
pro-rich policies.