Larry Blanchard wrote:

On Sun, 31 Aug 2008 21:17:23 -0700, Mark & Juanita wrote:

Top Total Income Tax Revenue (%) Adjusted Gross Income Share (%)
50% 97.01 87.49
25% 86.27 68.16
10% 70.79 47.32
5% 60.14 36.66
1% 39.89 22.06

So, from the IRS data: the bottom 50% are making 12.5% of adjusted
gross
income and paying less than 3% of all income taxes while the top 1% are
making 22% of adjusted gross income while paying nearly 40% of all
federal income taxes.

I may be wrong on the numbers, but I seem to recall a recent article that
said about 10-15% of the population is living in poverty. So they would
make up 20-30% of the bottom 50%. I doubt they, or even the group
directly above them, pay any income taxes, given that there is a standard
deduction. That helps to explain some of the discrepancies. And if you
add in other taxes, like sales taxes, that helps even more.

At least Warren Buffet had the decency to complain that his secretary paid
more income taxes than he did :-).

I think the statement was that she paid a higher rate than he did. This is
based upon his paying at the capital gains rate on a significant portion of
his income rather than the personal income rate. I would seriously doubt
she paid more in total dollars than he. His argument is somewhat specious
as, for the bulk of those who benefit from capital gains rates, this is a
recognition of the risk at which their money is placed when investing.
There is no assurance that one will make money, there is a chance one could
lose the full investment (K-mart, Enron) or a significant portion of it
(Krispy Kreme, Circuit City). The idea of the capital gains rate is to
provide some incentive to invest.


--
If you're going to be dumb, you better be tough