Do Businesses and the wealthy pay taxes?

Question

I believe that wealthy people are wealthy because they have greater influence over their incomes and just pass their taxes on to consumers. And the same for businesses.
So, are all taxes really sales taxes?

LeoGirl you are correct. The last stat i heard was the top 20% pay 80% of the Taxes. The question is do they simply pass that on to the middle class in the form of higher prices?

Answer 1

Businesses and the wealthy pay the majority of taxes. I can't remember the exact number but do know its over 70% of the revenue generated.

Answer 2

Businesses pay more taxes than you can imagine. That is the main reason many businesses are outsourcing to offshore and other countries, to avoid the taxes and remain competitive. But forget about any politician who says they will cut taxes, that just means they will generate the same tax revenues some place else. The politicians who talk about reducing or eliminating government programs, that is the only real way of reducing taxes... reduce the need for government expenditures.

Leo is right again... the wealthy personally pay over 70% of the tax revenues paid by individuals.

Answer 3

No. The wealthy do pay taxes. They pay a far greater share of the income tax.

2003 Numbers:

Top 1% of wage earners paid over 34% of the income taxes.
Top 5% of wage earners paid almost 55% of the income taxes.
Top 10% of wage earners paid almost 66% of the income taxes.

The bottom 50% pay only 3.5% of all income taxes

Answer 4

The wealthy do pay taxes but they have too many loopholes reducing their taxes..

Answer 5

They are the only one's who pay taxes.