Who bears most of the tax burden percentage wise?

Question

Which classes based on income comparitively bear most of the tax burden?

Even if the richest pay that high a tax, how much is it relative to their income,

as opposed to how much tax percentage is taken out relative to a middle class or working class earner?

wolf: I mean an accumulation of taxes, income tax, sales tax, payroll tax, etc.

Answer 1

Warren Buffet said that he paid a 17.7% tax rate on his $46 million of taxable income in 2006, while his employees paid an average 32.9% tax rate (his receptionist's tax rate was 30%).\

The wealthy people easily avoid paying 35% income tax by investing and paying only 15% on capital gains.

Answer 2

It varies slightly from year to year but it's usually about where cory has put it.

Top 1% pay something like a quarter, top 10% pay over half, top 50% pay over 95%....

I have this real problem looking at things in the relative though - - - - - that's where this whole "income gap" and "wealth gap" becomes an "income disparity" or "wealth disparity" - - - - almost everyone is increasing in wealth and income (in the latter case except retirees, divorcees, people in cyclical fields who know they're going to have a few very good years and a few lean years, etc....) - - - the total pie is growing, not shrinking or fixed. Within that it is also true that some people's incomes and wealth levels have risen dramatically - - - by virtue of the same policies that have grown the pie. To date no alternative model has been generated that will produce more even shares while growing the pie in the long run - - - in the short run you can rely on monetary mischief but this either must be pulled back in, a la 1929, or must run off the tracks, a la 1979. So Churchill really got it right when he said the choice was between equally shared misery and unequally shared plenty.

Why we let envy govern I do not know - why some people would rather be worse off but bask in the satisfaction that some rich guy lost his fortune than be better off and know that the rich guy is even richer, I have no idea.

Answer 3

Considering the consumption tax I'd have to argue the middle class. Income tax is not the ONLY tax Americans pay. Since Reagan and Bush have empowered CEOs to make $500 million a year, these are now INDIRECTLY paying more income tax. The reality is that the companies pay a portion of their taxes for them.

Answer 4

Different kinds of taxes have different effects.

I live in USA. I am not familiar with VAT, but I do recognize that different nations have different tax structures,

Perhaps you would get better answer if you put this question under Economics.

Property taxes hurt the elderly and people on fixed incomes the most. While many more than them pay property taxes, the others are often able to pass on those tax burdens to their customers.

Sales taxes hurt the poor the most, because most of their income goes to pay for neccessities.

There is also excise taxes, which work similarly, but less people familiar with.

Similarly gasoline taxes hurt the most people for whom they have limited money to commute, plus there is the pass on of transportation tzxes to the people paying for goods made more xpensive because more xpensive to transport them.

Employment tazes obviously have a bigger impact on people who have a job.

When I lived in Kentucky, I had to pay a tax on insurance premiums ... that is the moeny paid to insurance companies for auto and other insurance. I thought that was a particularly regressive tax.

Income taxes have a sliding percentage where people who make more money pay a higher tax, but what is significant there is the marginal rate.

Let's suppose to make the math easy, you are earning $ 50,000.00 a year and paying 10% tax rate which means you get to keep $ 40,000.00 of that, and to get this you are working 50 weeks (get 2 as vacation) of 40 hours, so that's $ 20,00 an hour.

Let's suppose the next tax bracket was 20% and that it hits if you make $ 60,000.00 a year, meaning you get to keep $ 48,000.00, and let's suppose that to get that much you have to work 50 hours a week instead of 40.

So the question is whether it is worth working 10 more hours a week to get $ 4.00 more an hour.

I did not use the actual #s ... I picked something out of a hat to make the math easy, but the deal basically is that as we work harder and get more money, the income tax rate goes up, and we get to keep less of that income, so at some point a person decides that it is not worth the extra effort to get the results of the higher income tax bracket.

Answer 5

"coragryph" is pretty close with his numbers. But he left out that the top ten percent makes over one third of the income in our country.

It should also be pointed out that the rich are paying taxes from their "wealth" while the middle class is paying it out of their "food budget"...... For the middle class, there is no "extra" at the end of the pay period. That is why individuals savings are currently at an all time low while individual debt for the average American is at an all time high.

Answer 6

The middle class and upper middle class bear the brunt of the tax burden...The more affluent may pay the most dollars but they certainly can afford to give more than someone who is hurting. The only way to remedy this is to opt for a flat tax. I personally like the idea of an entity paying a percentage of earned income whether that entity be human or a business concept.

Answer 7

The most wealth pay for the highest percentage of taxes and social programs.

Off the top of my head, something like 60% comes from the top 10% of earners -- but I haven't checked the numbers.

Answer 8

The upper middle class (those making $75,000 to half a million$/year).

Their taxes will be rising steadily under Bush's plan to pay for the tax cuts for those who make more than $ 1 million/year.


(Those people with the 5% pay 50% statistic appear to be referencing a pre-Bush-tax-cut pie chart, as well.)

Answer 9

The top 5% of earners pay 50% of the tax.
Also, the top 1% pay 30% of the national tax burden, while earning only 15% of the money!
The bottom 50% pay 5% !

Answer 10

wow . i thought this question would be an easy one to answer..
but it seems everyone is guessing..
all you have to do it look it up ..
top 10% of income earners pay 90% of the taxes..
and that bs statement about they can afford it is crap..
if you invest all your time and money into a project
why would it be ok to give half of it away because
the other guys project didnt do as well
or to those who dont even have a project