A closer look
Income tax in the United States hit a historical and eye-watering maximum marginal rate of 94 percent in 1944 on all earnings over 200,000 dollars as the government frantically tried to fund the massive expenses of World War II. While wealthy individuals naturally deployed armies of creative accountants to find loopholes and rarely paid that actual sticker price, the sheer concept of handing the federal government ninety-four cents of your last earned dollar is enough to make a modern venture capitalist violently pass out. By comparison, today's highest marginal tax brackets hover in the high thirties, allowing ultra-wealthy executives to keep significantly more of their massive bonuses while still aggressively complaining about being heavily persecuted by the IRS. Looking back at the historical tax codes really highlights the beautiful evolution of corporate lobbying and how successfully billionaires have convinced the public that taxing them is somehow a crime against nature
