Lee Scott wrote:
> I've been lurking for a good while, but felt I just had to jump in on
> this one. Here are the the statistics released by the IRS:
>
> "The Internal Revenue Service has released data on tax year 2003 that
> show the top 1 percent of taxpayers, ranked by adjusted gross income,
> paid 34.3 percent of all federal income taxes that year. The top 5
> percent paid 54.4 percent of the whole, the top 10 percent paid 65.8
> percent, and the top quarter of taxpayers paid 83.9 percent.
>
> In 1980, when the top statutory income tax rate went up to 70 percent,
> the share of income taxes paid by the top 1 percent of taxpayers was
> just 19.3 percent. After Ronald Reagan's tax cut of 1981, which reduced
> the top rate to 50 percent--a massive giveaway to the wealthy, according
> to critics on the Left--the percentage of income taxes paid by the top 1
> percent rose steadily.
>
> By 1986 the top 1 percent of taxpayers' share of all federal income
> taxes had risen to 25.7 percent. That year the top statutory tax rate
> was further cut to 28 percent--another huge giveaway, we were told. Yet
> the share of income taxes paid by the top 1 percent continued to rise.
> By 1992, it was up to 27.5 percent."
>
> See the full article at http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=18402
>
> The idea that the poor pay the lion's share of taxes is absurd. Aside
> from state and local sales taxes, which do tend to be regressive, the
> poor pay almost nothing.
>
> Lee Scott
>
>
When you talk about the "top n%" you refer to number of people, not to
the wealth they control. If you put the wealth besides all those numbers
your conclusions might be different.
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