Monday, August 24, 2009
Tax Withholding and a Separate Payroll Tax Hide the True Burden of Government - WSJ.com
Taxes are a disincentive.
They get countries in trouble when they get unbalanced and/or out of hand.
As the author writes, America's democracy is now corrupted...
They get countries in trouble when they get unbalanced and/or out of hand.
As the author writes, America's democracy is now corrupted...
Charles Murray writes this and more in the Wall Street Journal:
"Our democracy is corrupted when some voters think that they won't have to pay for the benefits their representatives offer them. It is corrupted when some voters see themselves as victims of exploitation by their fellow citizens.
By both standards, American democracy is in trouble. We have the worst of both worlds. The rhetoric of the president tells the public that the rich are not paying their fair share, undermining the common understanding from the bottom up. Meanwhile, the IRS recently released new numbers on who pays how much taxes, and those numbers tell the people at the top that they're being exploited.
Let's start with the rich, whom I define as families in the top 1% of income among those who filed tax returns. In 2007, the year with the most recent tax data, they had family incomes of $410,000 or more. They paid 40% of all the personal income taxes collected.
Yes, you read it right: 1% of American families paid 40% of America's personal taxes.
The families in the rest of the top 5% had family incomes of $160,000 to $410,000. They paid another 20% of total personal income taxes. Now we're up to three out of every five dollars in personal taxes paid by just five out of every 100 American families."
