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Show Soaking fiio rieti io iaiipayoro myto Deductions and exemptions exemp-tions have a far greater effect ef-fect in reducing the tax burden bur-den for persons in the lower low-er income brackets than they do for persons in the upper income brackets. Taxable income amounted to only 19 of adjusted gross income, in the $100,000 and over income bracket. Furthermore, credits against the tax liability lia-bility amounted to 27.8 in the case of individuals with a gross income below $5,000 and only 2.6 in the case of individuals with incomes of $100,000 or more. The top 50 of the taxpayer tax-payer returns filed for 1976 (those with adjusted gross incomes of $9,651 or more) accounted for 93.1 of all Federal income taxes paid. Conversely, the bottom 50 of the returns filed accounted account-ed for less than 7 of the Federal income taxes collected. col-lected. The lower 25 of the taxpayers contributed less than 12 of 1 of total Federal Fed-eral taxes paid. Moreover, several million low-income individuals have been re -moved from the tax rolls altogether during recent years because of legislative changes benefiting those with low incomes. Although Federal income in-come tax rates range all the If all taxable income remaining re-maining after payment of ed for persons with a gross income of $100,000 or more, the added revenue produced ($16.1 billion ) would operate oper-ate the Federal Government for less than 13 days at the 1978 spending rate. This was one of the facts reported by Utah Foundation, Founda-tion, the private tax research organization, in a report designed de-signed to correct popular misconceptions aboutthe Federal income tax. The report re-port notes that many Americans Ameri-cans consistently underestimate underes-timate the amount of Federal Fed-eral taxes paid by those in the higher income brackets, and suppose that the solution solu-tion to government's continual contin-ual need for increased revenue can be found in collecting col-lecting more taxes from those with high incomes. The Foundation report lists the following facts which were drawn from a recently -released Federal Internal Revenue Service analysis of 1976 Federal income in-come tax returns. Of the 5, 549 tax returns reporting adjusted gross incomes in-comes of $500,000 or more in 1976 all but six (0.1) paid a Federal income tax. The average tax for the 5,543 taxpayers in this high-income high-income group was $506,929, or 65 of their taxable in- greater deductions and exemptions the percentage of taxes in Utah is below that of the nation as a whole. In the 1976 tax year, total Federal income taxes paid in Utah amounted to 11.4 of adjusted gross income, compared with 13.5 throughout the US. The people of Utah have less supplementary income from non -wage or salary sources. Salary and wages accounted for 86.1 of total adjusted income in Utah during the 1976 tax year. Throughout the UnitedStates salary and wages made up 83.5 of the total adjusted gross income reported on all . Federal tax returns. way from 14 to 70, approximately ap-proximately 70 of the tax revenue is generated at rates of 25 or less. As a result, re-sult, a uniform tax rate of 21.2 would produce the same amount of revenue as is now received from the steeply progressive Federal tax rates. During the 1976 tax year 84.5 million individuals filing fil-ing Federal tax returns throughout the United States paid a total of $142 billion in income taxes, or an average aver-age of $1,678 per return. In Utah 466 thousand individuals indi-viduals paid $625 million in Federal income taxes, for an average of $1,341 per return. Because of generally lower income levels and |