In America, the richest pay significantly less in income taxes than everyone else

 "The White House’s calculation of what the wealthiest pay in taxes is well below what other analyses have found. The difference comes from the White House officials’ decision to count the rising value of wealthy Americans’ stock portfolios — which is not taxed on an annual basis — as income. It finds that between 2010 and 2018, those top 400 households, when including the rising value of their wealth, earned a combined $1.8 trillion and paid an estimated $149 billion in federal individual income taxes.

The analysis suggests that the wealthiest 400 households in America — those with net worth ranging between $2.1 billion and $160 billion — pay an effective federal income tax rate of just over 8 percent per year on average compared with an average rate of about 14 percent for all taxpayers.

“If a wealthy investor never sells stock that has increased in value, those investment gains are wiped out for income tax purposes when those assets are passed on to their heirs under a provision known as stepped-up basis,” they wrote.
Mr. Biden has proposed changing both those tax treatments. He would raise the capital gains rate to match the rate paid on wage income. And he would eliminate the stepped-up basis provision for wealthy heirs."