Skip to main content

Debt and taxes: some original infoviz creations

I was surprised to read this week that putatively educated Americans (a Louisiana lawyer, a Colorado dentist, an ABC News reporter) don't understand the concept of marginal tax rates. Because of this lack of comprehension, per ABC, the lawyer and dentist are vowing to keep their taxable income below $250,000 to avoid President Obama's proposed tax increase:
"I've put thought into how to get under $250,000," said [the ill-informed dentist]. "It would mean working fewer days which means having fewer employees, seeing fewer patients and taking time off."
Apparently some clarification is called for. Below is a US federal income tax table for 2009 (source).

This does not mean that if you bring in more than $372,951, every single dollar in your entire pile of money is taxed at 35%. Only Dollar #372,952 (plus whatever additional money you may earn) is taxed at that rate. Dollar #372,950 is taxed at 33%. Meanwhile, Dollar #1 is taxed at 10%. Hence the term "marginal": In a progressive tax system, there are margins (i.e., boundary lines) at which the government increases the tax rate on any additional incoming dollar.

So I concluded a little infoviz might help clear up the misunderstanding. (Click on images to enlarge.)

This illustrates the overall tax structure. As your money piles up (green), you have to pay a greater share to the IRS (red).








At this year's income tax rates, here are the raw numbers for people in each of the four filing statuses:

Note the colored cells in the Single table. Those numbers tell us how many dollars are subject to each tax rate. Clear as mud? Here's a graphic depiction:

And here's how that single person's tax prospects compare to those of married people filing jointly, married people filing separately and heads of household:

Questions? Comments? Critiques? Please let me know what you think.
Labels:

Comments

  1. CW CampbellMarch 7, 2009 at 10:51 AM

    Actually, upon reflection, I have one: To be more accurate, the legend on the Y axis should really read "adjusted gross income in 000's." But does that complicate matters by raising the question of what "adjusting" is?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Justin WehrMarch 7, 2009 at 11:02 AM

    Beautifully done! I will share this post with my readers on Monday.

    One thing I would like to see is a line graph with the x-axis being pre-tax income and the y-axis being after-tax income.

    ReplyDelete
  3. CW CampbellMarch 7, 2009 at 4:32 PM

    Hmm, interesting. Thanks, Justin. I'll noodle around with that and see what I come up with.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I want to be Jorge Camoes when I grow up.

Portuguese infoviz enthusiast Jorge Camoes has spent the last year and a half writing informed, insightful blog posts on the field, complete with examples and citations. To his credit, he approaches everything -- even the revered work of Edward Tufte and Stephen Few -- with loving skepticism. I'm gratified, too, that he seems to agree with me on one central point: Snazzy tools alone don't get you good data visualization. It all comes down to putting serious thought into the project before you plot the first data point. In future posts we'll discuss more of Jorge's ideas. Bem feito, o Sr. Camoes!
Post a Comment
Read more

Everybody loves visual information — especially Abraham Lincoln.

Infographics are clearly having a cultural moment. They have become pervasive in newspapers, magazines, blog posts, and viral tweets; they appear on television and in advertising, in political campaigns and at art openings. As a Google search term, “infographic” has increased nearly twenty-fold in the last five years. Yet infographics have been popular, in one form or another, for centuries. The source of their power isn’t computers or the Internet, but the brain’s natural visual intelligence. Gareth Cook , the editor of Best American Infographics 2013 , has put together a short but true summary of the history of information graphics. (Many of you who see this blog may know most of it already.) His striking lede recounts how much Abraham Lincoln valued his "slave map," shown above. Lincoln's reliance on the shades of gray throughout the Confederacy made an enormous difference in his Civil War decision-making. Fortunately it's rare that most people have to make l
Post a Comment
Read more

Hype and backlash:
visualizing pop culture trends

Back in 2005, the astute pop-culture chronicler Adam Sternbergh pointed out that a person's opinion of any given entertainment product depends largely on how long they've been aware of it — that is, where the product sits on the sine-wave timeline of public expectations (aka buzz). His findings, in chart form: "Welcome to the undulating curve of shifting expectations—the Heisenbergian principle by which hype determines how much you enjoy a given pop-culture phenomenon. The first-wave audience is pleasantly surprised, but the second-wavers feel let down; then the third wave finds it’s not as bad as they’ve heard—and they’re all watching the exact same show." Almost five years later, this pattern describes just about all our collective experiences. Sports fans, how much sweeter was it to watch the New Orleans Saints come out of nowhere to win the NFC championship than to have seen the Minnesota Vikings do it for the umpteenth time? As for politics, consider the poll
Post a Comment
Read more