Those poor rich people

[entirelysonja]

The Tax Foundation announced Wednesday that in 2007, more taxes were paid by the top 1% (40% of total income tax revenues) than the bottom 95% (39% of total income tax revenues). They claim that this data "clearly debunks the conventional Beltway rhetoric that the "rich" are not paying their fair share of taxes

Comments

[electroweak]

As gsh pointed out in comments, there are also payroll taxes to be considered, which include 7.65% for social security and medicare, or 15.3% for the self-employed.

The tax is also 15.3% on the other-employed, since that "extra" 7.65% is paid by your employer and therefore - if it weren't levied - it would either go into your salary (making it a ghost tax) or would go into keeping the business strong (thus making your job more secure).

[entirelysonja]

Yes, I was oversimplifying -- of course the employer pays the other part. I focused on what the individual pays because that was the emphasis of the report I was discussing.

I take it you are in favor of lower taxes?

[electroweak]

I take it you are in favor of lower taxes?

Oh, heck no. I believe in the lesson that was taught two centuries ago by Alexis de Tocqueville ("Grant me thirty years of equal division of inheritances and a free press, and I will provide you with a republic"). In modern terms, don't allow wealth to condense in the upper classes and don't allow money to bend the political process.

Therefore, high taxes are required to sustain freedom and to keep oligarchies from forming. And I say that as a "greedy" capitalist who is self-employed and working to get his own company off the ground - high taxes are good for democracy and good for capitalism. Allowing money to concentrate forever in the hands of the few destroys innovation and damages the flow of trade; both of these things would destroy capitalism. The people who want low taxes on the rich aren't in favor of capitalism, they're in favor of oligarchy.

[entirelysonja]

Oh, good -- for a minute there I thought I might have entered the twilight zone. :-)

[electroweak]

You haven't entered the Twilight Zone, but I've been seeing Rod Serling lurking behind pillars lately - so I'm avoiding taking any airplane rides with William Shatner, visiting any deserted asteroids, or saying that I have all the time in the world for reading...

[leora]

Just in case, I recommend studying Braille.

[electroweak]

The writers of Futurama considered that and the results aren't pretty.

[leora]

Oh... good point.