Republic Rules - The U.S.A. is a great representative republic.

In a previous discussion, we talked about WHO pays the most taxes… actually, it was about who pays taxes… but, in the group of tax payers:

According to 2005 IRS statistics, of all taxpayers, who pays the MOST?

A. Those with an adjusted gross income of $30,881

B. Those with an adjusted gross income of $62,068

C. Those with an adjusted gross income of $103,912

D. Those with an adjusted gross income of $145,283

E. Those with an adjusted gross income of $364,657

Before we look at the figures, you might wonder why we used the dollar breaks in the groups above. Those numbers are the starting incomes of the top 50%, 25%, 10%, 5%, and 1% (respectively) of taxpayers.

Source: IRS

So, in each of the top income brackets, who paid the most income taxes?

The answer is E… the top 1% of taxpayers paid almost 40% of all taxes in 2005.

Source: IRS

Note that the top 10% of taxpayers paid over 70% of the taxes… which means 90% of the taxpayers paid only 30% of the taxes. And half of the people pay barely more than 3% of the taxes. For those who like pictures, here’s another way to look at it:

So, the “rich” pay 70% of the taxes… but they are people with taxable income of more than $104,000! That’s a lot of money, to be sure, but are they all RICH? Not really. Are they paying “too little” like you hear from politicians or in the media so often? 70% doesn’t seem like “too little” to me!

If you were a member of a club where everyone had an equal vote to set the membership dues… but could set the rate so only some people had to pay more of the dues… what do you suppose the voting tendency of the “bottom 90%” might be? If you didn’t have to pay the higher dues, you might be fine with others paying most of the bill… but, if you were one of the payers, you might not be so excited about being a member of the club.

Given human nature, I find it a dangerous situation when there are too many people in a group who would be inclined to vote for representatives who promise to tax others. It gives power to politicians at the expense of a minority. Worse, it is simply unfair.

Remember, too, that we’re only talking about Income Taxes here.  The “rich” (people with taxable incomes of $104,000+),  are ALSO paying other taxes… property taxes, sales taxes, etc… and, since they have more to spend, they are paying more of those taxes, too.

When you hear people claim that “the rich” are getting off easy and should pay more taxes, consider the facts.  Most “regular citizens” who take such positions have succumbed to the lies of politicians and those with a social agenda.   Don’t allow yourself to be fooled.

Responsible citizens examine the facts and make decisions based on those facts.