On Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 09:36:20 (-0400) Doug Henwood writes: > >On May 9, 2011, at 6:54 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: > >> Speaking of debunking, are there any articles that take up the rightwing >> claim that the top 3 percent of American taxpayers are responsible for >> 46 percent of all the tax revenue? > >Yeah, it's because they have so much income. (And the figure they usually give >is for income taxes alone - not including SS taxes.) The top 5% had 32% of all >pretax income in 2007; the top 1% had 19%. Since the bottom part of the income >distribution pays little or no income tax, the very rich do provide an >outsized share of the revenue. The top 5% paid 61% of all income taxes in >2007; the top 1%, 39%. But of all federal revenues, the top 5% contributes >44%, and the top 1%, 28%. (2007 is the most recent year for which the CBO has >numbers.)
So, aside from considering payroll, state, and local taxes, which are regressive (?), don't we need to consider how much we borrow from the top income brackets? The government could tax them, but instead pays them interest. Shouldn't that be accounted for as a start? Bill _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
