Taxes Then and Now

You may have heard that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has proposed a new federal marginal income tax rate of 70 percent on income over $10 million. Yes, that rate would apply only on income over $10 million. That's way more generous than I would be (as shown here). But of course Republicans are pretending she proposes to tax the entire income at that rate, rather than the part over $10 million.

Anyway, you may or may not know that our marginal tax rates used to be a lot more aggressive than that during the era when some would say America was "great." Here's a table of the tax rates from 1963, adjusted to 2013 dollars:


Yes, that says that everything over $1.52 million for an individual was taxed at 91 percent, and that a 50% tax rate kicked in at $243,000.

In contrast, here are the 2018 federal tax brackets:


You will note how much lower our tax rates are now.