[karpierz]

You start by saying that wealthy people can pretty freely manipulate the amount of income they show for tax purposes.

The follow-up is that based on the manipulated income data, wealthy people pay disproportionately more taxes?

[twoodfin]

Right. The current low rates provide much stronger incentives to accurately report income vs. less efficient tax shelters and in-lieu-of-cash benefits. So we expect taxable income statistics to more accurately capture real earnings than under earlier tax regimes (particularly pre-1986).