generally how much do they pay?
2007-11-08 16:27:25 · 2 answers · asked by applepie8111 2 in Business & Finance ➔ Taxes ➔ United States
Truly lower class -- 0% of wages.
Middle class -- 33 to 50% of wages.
2007-11-08 16:38:58 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Anon is wrong on both counts, depending on what taxes you are talking about. If you're just talking about federal income tax, then the poor generally pay zero but the middle class is WAY lower than the estimate anon gives - many pay nothing, if they have dependent children, and for the rest, it's generally under 15%. This depends of course on your definition of "middle class".
If you include all federal taxes deducted from your paycheck, lower income people still pay social security and medicare which is 7.65% in addition to any income tax paid.
If you include all taxes, pretty much everyone pays some - like gasoline tax, sales tax, various local taxes.
Overall, the top 50% of earners pay about 96% of total federal income tax collected, the top 10$ pay almost 2/3, and the top 5% pay over half.
2007-11-09 01:53:40 · answer #2 · answered by Judy 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋