Extra Taxes Required From Each Taxpayer to Erase the Deficit

This chart by Mercatus Center senior research fellow, Veronique de Rugy uses data from the Tax Foundation to examine the increases in taxes necessary to balance the annual federal budget in each of the next 5 years. This year alone, taxes would have to increase by an average of $10,000 per taxpayer in order to pay for all of the federal government’s spending.  Note that while the values of these tax increases trend downward over time (from $9,825 in 2010 to $4,752 in 2015) this decline is based on Office of Management Budget projections, which are famously unreliable.

Learn why even more taxes are required.