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Monday, April 16, 2007

40% Pay No Taxes


From the National Center for Policy Analysis:

The U.S. income tax system is so bad and increasingly reliant on a shrinking number of Americans to pay the nation's bills, that 40 percent of the country's households pay no income taxes at all, says Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary, and president of Ari Fleischer Communications.

    • According to a recent study by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), those who make more than $43,200 (the top 40 percent) pay 99.1 percent of all income taxes.
    • Those who made more than $87,300 in 2004, the top 10 percent, paid 70.8 percent of all income taxes.
    • In other words, 10 percent pay 7 out of every 10 dollars and their share of the burden is rising.

This might explain why there's not more of an outcry about our grossly unfair tax system: nearly half of Americans aren't affected by it--except maybe to get a free ride.

A free society depends on its citizens staying informed about the activities of their government. When 40% pay no taxes, they have little incentive to stay informed, or to protest unfair taxes.

That's a society in jeopardy.


1 comments:

Unknown said...

Check out the TAX Foundation Web Site. It does a complete analysis of those who comprise this 40%.

This 40% includes a whole lot of people who have reduced their taxable income to 0, in part, due to Bush's tax cuts in 2004. Another sub set are retirees making less than $8K. The tax foundation breaks it all by race, ethnicity, age, etc. I don't think all 40% are getting a free ride, but there is no denying that the $75K crowd of which I am one, are carrying the tax load.

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