“There exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level, and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom.”
- Alexis de Tocqueville -
Looks like the rich pay more than their fair share of taxes after all.
Scott Hodge of the Tax Policy Center Blog wrote today about newly released IRS statistics that show,
[T]he top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 40.4 percent of the total income taxes collected by the federal government. This is the highest percentage in modern history. By contrast, the top 1 percent paid 24.8 percent of the income tax burden in 1987, the year following the 1986 tax reform act.
Remarkably, the share of the tax burden borne by the top 1 percent now exceeds the share paid by the bottom 95 percent of taxpayers combined. In 2007, the bottom 95 percent paid 39.4 percent of the income tax burden. This is down from the 58 percent of the total income tax burden they paid twenty years ago.
To put this in perspective, the top 1 percent is comprised of just 1.4 million taxpayers and they pay a larger share of the income tax burden now than the bottom 134 million taxpayers combined. (Emphasis Added)
How dare those greedy rich bastards oppose tax increases!
Here’s Hodge’s final observation:
Some in Washington say the tax system is still not progressive enough. However, the recent IRS data bolsters the findings of an OECD study released last year showing that the U.S.—not France or Sweden—has the most progressive income tax system among OECD nations.
We rely more heavily on the top 10 percent of taxpayers than does any nation and our poor people have the lowest tax burden of those in any nation.
These statistics prove that Democrat proposals to further tax the rich are not grounded in principles of good public policy or simple notions of fairness, but rather are designed to pit one class of Americans against another in order to gain political advantage.
Democrats most recent efforts to convince the non-rich majority that the rich minority is the source of all their woes, is cynical, manipulative, and unoriginal.
But most of all it’s just bad for the country.
9 responses so far ↓
1 The Tax Club // Jul 30, 2009 at 10:18 am
I agree I feel that by taxing the wealthy more than everyone else causes classes to clash. It leaves plenty of room for controversy and fights. There has to be something else done.
2 Peter // Jul 30, 2009 at 11:00 am
Tax Club,
Thanks for the comment.
Make no mistake about it, Democrats benefit from the class warfare because there are many more non-rich people than there are rich people.
It’s political!
3 Tax Overhaul Needed Says Brookings Institute // Aug 10, 2009 at 12:36 am
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[...] The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 40.4 percent of the total income taxes collected by the federal government. This is the highest percentage in modern history. By contrast, the top 1 percent paid 24.8 percent of the income tax burden in 1987, the year following the 1986 tax reform act. Remarkably, the share of the tax burden borne by the top 1 percent now exceeds the share paid by the bottom 95 percent of taxpayers combined. In 2007, the bottom 95 percent paid 39.4 percent of the income tax burden. This is down from the 58 percent of the total income tax burden they paid twenty years ago. To put this in perspective, the top 1 percent is comprised of just 1.4 million taxpayers and they pay a larger share of the income tax burden now than the bottom 134 million taxpayers combined. http://blog.pappastax.com/index.php/…han-bottom-95/ [...]
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