Tax Day, Part Two

I decided to hold off on this cross-post from Rational Resistance because there was so much other good content here this week. I think it's still relevant.

A favorite theme with conservatives is that rich people are overtaxed. You know, 47% of people pay no taxes (false), the percentage of income tax that rich people pay is too high, blah, blah, blah.

Courtesy of David Corn we have a chart that dispatches these claims handily.

 

I think we now know why most people, including a lot of teabaggers think they're taxed fairly: it's because they are.

3 thoughts on “Tax Day, Part Two

  1. Thanks, Jack!  Of course, you’ll get the occasional idiot who glances at it and indignantly concludes that some people are being taxed more than they earn!

  2. I think it may be time to re-think the idea of a flat tax.

    If we had a simple flat tax that included basic social security, medicare, and health care as well as covering the rest of the budget we may wind up with a fairer situation than we have now.

    If we took that chart and added in the cost of health care on a per-capita basis we will see a different picture.  This one would go a long way to explaining why it is so hard to pass real health care reform in this country.

    People at the higher end of the spectrum pay a minimal percentage of their income toward health insurance.  For people from upper middle class on down, the amount of income that is forgone or paid for health coverage is a large percentage of their total income.

    Norm

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