Who Pays U.S. Income Taxes (and Who Doesn't)

The federal individual income tax has been all over the news since President Donald Trump presented Congress with an outline for sweeping tax reform. It remains to be seen whether Congress will pass any legislation resembling Trump's tax plan, as lawmakers have struggled for years to agree on any major changes to the tax code no matter which party controlled the House and Senate.

Regardless, to make sense of any tax reform proposals, it's important to understand how our current system works and who pays what when it comes to individual (not corporate) income tax.

Our current system is designed to be progressive: If you make more money, you're supposed to pay more in taxes. And that's actually how it works, according to a Pew Research study of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data from 2015 (the most recent available).

Source: Fool.com