" used improper usenet message composition style
by full-quoting:

You left out the most important part.

I didn't write that material - I just quoted it.

And why did you full-quote it - you knucklehead? Don't you know how to
trim unnecessary quoted material when you're composing a usenet reply?

What percent of income in taxes do you claim those in the upper
part of that 1% group are paying? You said for the lower part
of the 1% it was 25-30%, which is substantial.

Again, I'm not claiming anything. The guy that wrote that material did
all the claiming.

He doesn't say what the effective tax rate is for the top 0.5% or even
the top 0.1%, but he does say that the income of those groups are more
likely to have come from stock options, capital gains (probably made
with borrowed money), and real estate - all of which are taxed at a
lower rate than "earned income".

And what exact mechanisms are they using to reduce it?

To quote from the article:

============
Those in the top half and, particularly, top 0.1%, can often borrow for
almost nothing, keep profits and production overseas, hold personal
assets in tax havens, ride out down markets and economies, and influence
legislation in the U.S. They have access to the very best in accounting
firms, tax and other attorneys, numerous consultants, private wealth
managers, a network of other wealthy and powerful friends, lucrative
business opportunities, and many other benefits.

Those in the top 0.5% have incomes over $500k (if working) and a net
worth over $1.8M if retired. The higher we go up into the top 0.5% the
more likely it is that their wealth is in some way tied to the
investment industry and borrowed money.

They are much more likely to have built their net worth from stock
options and capital gains in stocks and real estate and private business
sales, not from income which is taxed at a much higher rate.
============

And here's more that I did not quote originally:

============
Recently, I spoke with a younger client who retired from a major
investment bank in her early thirties, net worth around $8M. We can
estimate that she had to earn somewhere around twice that, or $14M-$16M,
in order to keep $8M after taxes and live well along the way, an
impressive accomplishment by such an early age.

Folks in the top 0.1% come from many backgrounds but it's infrequent to
meet one whose wealth wasn't acquired through direct or indirect
participation in the financial and banking industries. One of our
clients, net worth in the $60M range, built a small company and was
acquired with stock from a multi-national. Stock is often called a
"paper" asset. Another client, CEO of a medium-cap tech company, retired
with a net worth in the $70M range. The bulk of any CEO's wealth comes
from stock, not income, and incomes are also very high. Last year, the
average S&P 500 CEO made $9M in all forms of compensation.

Another client with a net worth in the $10M range is the ex-wife of a
managing director of a major investment bank, while another was able to
amass $12M after taxes by her early thirties from stock options as a
high level programmer in a successful IT company.
==============

I think what we have here is some bit of trickery on the part of the
upper 1% to say that they're supporting the federal gov't (or maybe all
levels of gov't) off their own back.

The top 1% may be paying close to 40% of all federal income tax, but
they're also earning something like 25 to 30% of all income in the
country.

If you factor in property taxes, payroll tax, sales tax, gasoline tax,
you'll see that the funding of all levels of gov't (state, local,
federal) is more equitably or evenly funded by a broad range of citizens
across all income levels vs just narrowly looking at how the federal
income tax pie is sliced up.

I also read somewhere that Bush's tax cuts have actually *increased* the
tax burden on what I think is the lower half of the upper 1%, probably
by reducing the tax burden on the upper half of the top 1% as well as
the 95% to 99% segment.