So you’re willing to concede that the rich pay their fair share?
If you flip it around, and ask, how much of your total income is used to pay taxes and fees for federal, state, and local taxes, the ones at the lower end will be paying a much higher percentage of their income.
There is only so much you actually have to pay for when you become rich where the folks on the lower end must pay for certain things that take a larger part of their income.
No chance it is “fair” and we know who is writing the tax laws.
This is simply false.
One can certainly argue that our tax code should be more progressive than it is, but denying that it is progressive at all is contradicted by the facts.
Many places switched from part of income tax to fees. Skyrocketed increase for fees to national parks this past year. Went up 300% for a weekly pass. You apply that over and over again in many parts of your life, and it adds up.
It just simply costs more of the percentage of your income to live and because of it, it takes a bigger chunk of your income and thus isn’t progressive.
Lastly, Social Security is a kicker for the one thing that is flat out regressive. Capital gains pays zilch for it, and it stops at 127K or so of income. That tax is burdened by the middle class.
That’s chump change for the wealthy, but anyone hit by it is burdened less and less the more money they make.
And don’t tell me it’s a “fund”. That’s not how the GOP acts with it.
The article just says that top 3% of US taxpayers pay the majority of income taxes.
If they pay 60% of all income tax paid, but have e.g. 80% of income, they're still paying "the majority of income taxes", but not a fair share of them.
I don't know what "fair share" means exactly, but the 3% in question make far less a % of national income than they pay in income taxes.
Besides this extreme example, you can get the 3% much lower in their share of income and still be justified for the taxes they pay.
Say, a person makes 1M year and a 999999 people make 10K per year. The first person earns just 0,01% of the total income combined, but he might be the only one paying taxes if the others are below the taxable income level.
So, he might pay e.g. 20% of 1M (and 100% of taxes), while he only makes 0.01% of the income -- and that could still be fair.
Now add many dirt poor, many middle class, and a 3% of upper middle class, millionaires, billionaires and so on.