Dylan Matthews points out Thanks to Obama, the rich paid more in taxes in 2013 than they did in 1980 "President Obama has raised taxes on the richest 1 percent of Americans so much that they actually paid more in 2013 than they did in 1980, before the Reagan and Bush tax cuts and the huge recent increase in inequality."
So what happened? Two things, mainly. First, Obama used the expiring Bush tax cuts as leverage to force Congress to accept higher tax rates for the rich. Couples with more than $450,000 in taxable income faced a top rate of 39.6 percent, not 35 percent, and the top capital gains rate went up from 15 percent to 20 percent; income taxes were back to where they were for the rich under Clinton.
Second, 2013 was the first year that many of the taxes in the Affordable Care Act took effect, including a 3.8 percent surtax on investment income (including capital gains) and a 0.9 percent increase in the Medicare payroll tax, only applying to income above $200,000 for individuals or $250,000 for couples. The expiration of the Social Security payroll tax holiday, in effect since 2011, also played a role, but a comparatively small one.
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