[tater]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

So what? That's not the only tax that people pay in real life. You can't just ignore reality because it doesn't fit into your narrative. Taxes paid are taxes paid. Money in, money out.

Here's some hard numbers: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/bu...er=rss&emc=rss

YOUR graph says total federal tax revenues. Your graph is meaningless in the context of local and state taxes. We're talking in this thread about FEDERAL taxes. Remember OP and Google? FEDERAL.

Regardless, you take 0% income tax, add on 0% state income tax, then add in property tax at maybe 2% of income. Throw in FICA (including the hidden half of the tax if your are a Republican, and believe the "employer contribution" crap if you are a dem so only count 7.65% for dems ), that's 17.3% (11.65% for dems ) tax. Assume that they pay 6% sales tax on 50% of their remaining income (half not being taxable—the less they make, the more likely ALL retail expense should be "necessities" and untaxed)).

That's ~4.8%. So they pay ~22% tax. At the most, and many pay less. They also actually get a return on those taxes in the form of medicaid, and other government charity.

Our effective tax rate (all federal I think) is ~28-30% according to our accountant. State is ~8%. Add in property and sales tax and it's maybe another couple points. So roughly 40% tax. Actually, given my wife's medical practice, we also pay a special "medicaid tax" placed only upon doctors. She gets paid below cost for medicaid—not even counting her time, below overhead cost—and must take medicaid to have privileges at any of the 3 hospitals in town. The direct, out of pocket costs amount to about a 5-10% tax on our family given the large number she's required to see (haven't actually calculated it, but we were spitballing the numbers once with the accountant). So we're closer to 45-50% tax.