I said it was the effective tax rate.

What are the "top 400 families?" Is it actually just 400 households making a gazillion bucks a year?

One, they are not statistically meaningful---though they likely pay far more taxes than is a fair share---effective rate is silly, really, it's total dollars paid in, it's not like if you make a billion a year you use more services than someone who makes 100k a year, after all.

Two, the second chart seems wrong, and I have no idea what the source actually is. MY effective tax rate is far higher than those listed (it's on the tax report I get from the accountant every year). More like 28% or more. Maybe if we cheated on our taxes like Obama cabinet members we'd pay less, I dunno.

Ah, I see, that's just income tax. Throw FICA in there. CBO charts consistently show "all federal taxes" having an effective rate in the high 20s to low 30s as income level rises to the top 1%.

http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=5746&type=0&sequence=1

for the top 20%, the current effective rate is 27.1%. For the top 1% it is 31.2%. This is TAXES ACTUALLY COLLECTED. So that is after all the dodges, the average, effective rate for the top 1% is 31.2% of income.

They pay FAR more. More as a %, and more in terms of shares. The cost of running government has exactly nothing to do with the amount of money earned by people. The cost of government should be a fixed expense, roughly scaled to population.

I pay rather a lot of taxes. I use, lesse, roads, and my family's share of "freedom" as secured by our military (4 shares).

So, I use the roads as much as any other father of 2 with a wife, and I use 4 shares of the military... why should I pay 15 shares of tax, exactly? Why is that more fair than only paying 14 shares of tax for our family of 4?

Why should someone paying less than 1 share EVER get a tax break?



[IMG]Other people were brought into income tax, they picked up the bill of those that avoided paying.[/IMG]

No, the government spent more and more. At this point, it's not like anyone "not rich" is picking up the US tab, tax rates could be zero for all byut the top 20%, and revenue would barely change.

Open a History book. Might help ya some.