Quote Originally Posted by GeoFisher View Post
Explain to me how they end up paying anywhere NEAR 40% of their income in taxes?? Must be some new kind of math.

later,

Geo
A 2009 study by the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy concluded that state and local taxes took a higher percentage of income from the poor and middle class than from the wealthy--researchers found those in the top 1% paid around 5% in state and local taxes while those in the bottom 20% paid almost 11%--double what richest paid

the same study also found that the average state excise tax accounted for 7% for the poorest folk--4.7% for middle class--0.9% for the wealthy

according to a 2007 CBO report the bottom 80% paid 9% of their income on social security tax while the top 1% only paid 1.6% of their income on social security tax

those folks earning $500000 or greater have seen their overall effective tax rate drop by almost 50% since 1980 while the rate for those making $20000 or less has barely budged

corporate taxes as a percentage of federal revenue dropped from 27.3% in 1955 to 8.9% in 2010--during that same time period individual income/payrolls as a percentage of federal revenue skyrocketed from 58% to 81.5% thus the overall tax burden shifted from the wealthy and corporations to middle class and poor folk