Visualization of the Week: Your US tax rate, from 1913 to 2012

An interactive chart showing equivalent inflation-adjusted incomes and effective federal tax rates for the past century.

Prompted by Warren Buffett’s appeal to establish a minimum tax on the wealthy and the “fiscal cliff” negotiations in Congress, Ritchie King designed an interactive chart showing historical effective federal tax rates (federal taxes paid divided by taxable income) based on inflation-adjusted 2012 income.

US tax rates, 1913 to 2012

This chart shows the 1963 equivalent income and federal tax rate for a married couple filing jointly and earning 100,000 in 2012. Click here for the full interactive visualization.

Using Tax Foundation data, King designed the interactive to show equivalent income and federal tax rates for any year from 1913 (when the current US federal tax program was imposed) to 2012. Just enter your income and filing status, and slide your mouse along the timeline; you can view your equivalent income and effective federal income tax rate for any year from 1913 to 2012. For comparison, the lowest and highest tax rates are outlined in gray in the background. For fun, you can also click the $10 million value block in the top right to see what Warren Buffett was talking about in his op-ed.

Hat tip to Nathan Yau for highlighting King’s chart.

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