Trying to figure out the best way to show tax data
September 18th, 2008Here’s my latest shot at it from the new Tax Policy Center data:
This is essentially the same presentation used by Viveka at chartjunk except I’ve obviously used updated 2012 data instead of old 2009 data (biggest difference: includes sunsetting of some Bush tax cuts), inverted the x/y axes to make it more intuitive, and gotten rid of unneccesary (and inherently subjective) annotation. Of course, it’s a subjective call to use the Tax Policy Center’s current law baseline instead of the tax-cuts-extended baseline, but I think it’s a fairer baseline since either candidate would face an uphill battle getting the Bush tax cuts extended and it still treats both candidates equally.