According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, federal income taxes, as a share of GDP, have drop to their lowest level since 1942.
Key points:
- Income tax receipts...equaled just 8.6 percent of GDP while the "on-budget" deficit in 2003 -- the government's measure that excludes consideration of Social Security receipts and expenditures -- was 5.0 percent of the economy.
- The share of federal revenues consisting of [highly regressive] payroll taxes reached the highest level in the history of the tax system
- Corporate income taxes were just 1.2 percent of GDP, the lowest level since 1937.
Not suprisingly, the CBPP cites income tax cuts as the main reason this has occured.
Read the whole thing.