Noting the rise in income inequality in recent years and the need to reform the U.S. tax system, the president on Tuesday said that some of the wealthiest in America pay far less in federal taxes as a percentage of their income than many lower down the income scale.
“A quarter of all millionaires now pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households. Some billionaires have a tax rate as low as 1%,” Obama said in a speech in Kansas.
As for the president’s assertion that some billionaires have a tax rate as low as 1%, Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, said that it’s definitely possible but hard to verify.
Full Story: Billionaires with 1% tax rates