The truth: 81.9% of Americans pay income tax....

[hfojvt]

3. considering that 20.2% of Americans are under 14 years of age

and another 12.8% are over 65. I don't see how 81.9% of Americans can pay income tax.

Further, since "income tax" is a generic phrase, presumably the Brookings Institution would be talking about state income taxes as well. But often when people say "income tax" what they mean is "Federal Income tax" and that is usually well understood in the context.

I usually enoucrage people to be more precise, but it does not mean they are lying or even wrong when what they were was imprecise. In the same way that Brookings was imprecise when they said "of Americans"