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Opinion
Joe Nocera

The Golden Age of Hollywood Tax Avoidance

Do you really think Bing Crosby and Bob Hope paid 90 percent of their income to the taxman?

Let’s talk oil.

Let’s talk oil.

Photographer: Jimmy Sime/Hulton Archive
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After Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez raised the idea of a marginal tax rate of 70 percent on income over $10 million, the progressive wing of the Twittersphere began pointing out that in the 1950s and early 1960s , the top marginal tax rate was over 90 percent.