Who Pays Iowa Taxes?

Iowa Fiscal Partnership

Lower-income non-elderly households in Iowa pay a much greater share of their meager incomes in state and local taxes than higher-income families pay.

Lower-income non-elderly households in Iowa pay a disproportionate share of their income in state and local taxes. New data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) establish a continuing problem of fairness in Iowa’s tax code: Those who earn less income can expect to pay a larger share of it in state and local taxes than those who make more.

For the 60 percent of non-elderly taxpayers in Iowa who earn less than $50,000, the combination of sales and excise taxes, property taxes and income taxes together amount to well over 10 percent of total income. By contrast, the top 5 percent of taxpayers, earning over $127,000, on average pay about 7.6 percent or less of their income in state and local taxes.

Go here to see the chart.

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