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Comment by morpheuskafka | Hacker News Reader

> A plurality of Americans don’t pay federal income taxes

What does a plurality even mean here? This is a binary question, so plurality and majority are the same thing. And I don't think it is factually correct that the majority of Americans do not pay income taxes.

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I apologize on the wording, but this is an easy thing for you to Google!

https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-in...

I didn't look hard but that's the first thing I found. Famously, Mitt Romney complained that 47% of Americans don't contribute to federal income tax revenue, which is what I was thinking of.

Side note...I hate this stat because it makes it sound like the rich are paying their share of taxes. The reality is that people who make large w2 income pay a large part of federal taxes, and while they would be considered rich they are not the ultra-rich we see in the news every day.

> .I hate this stat because it makes it sound like the rich are paying their share of taxes

Yes! I agree, I don't mean to sound like I support the status quo. In this particular case, I wanted to clarify that green card-holding immigrants carry a disproportionate amount of tax burden (but that is not to support the current state of things).

I didn't mean to imply you did support the status quo. And you're right about GC holders as they tend to make good money and fall into the worst spot tax wise - having a large w2 income.

People who complain about people not playing income taxes ignore payroll taxes.

Payroll taxes are just that - payroll taxes!

Income taxes are not payroll taxes

Yes, technically payroll taxes are not income taxes.

And people who that x number of people do not pay income tax are implying they are paying no federal taxes when that is not true. It is a disingenuous argument.

Payrolls taxes are a tax based on (some of) your income. So they are a type of income tax in the broad sense.

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