You know why I don't have a problem with the wealthiest Americans paying 75-85% of our taxes (that number is a little high)? Because those wealthiest people that you talk about also posess 75-80% of this nations wealth. You wanna talk about reform, then we should talk about narrowing the ever widening gap between the rich and poor in this country.

-Demosthenes

__________________
"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

If it was a 1 for 1 relationship regarding taxes and wealth, then you would be right and none of the wealthy would argue. They would thank you and hug and kiss you until you felt like the most loved person in the whole world. lol

Seriously, what you propose is something along the lines of a flat tax where the burden falls proportionately on the income earned. I am all for that, but I have to tell you that sort of goal is a far cry from what we have now.

If I make 10 times as much in income as one of my employees, then I pay 50-65 times as much in taxes. Of course I should pay more if I earn more. I have no problem paying 10 times as much in taxes if I earn 10 times as much. We can chalk that up to my moral responsiblity to pay for people who cannot pay enough taxes to cover their pro-rata share of government expenses. No problem. When I pay and effective tax rate of 50% while my employee is paying an effective rate of 10%, however, we have an issue of equity and fairness. That means that if I earn 10 times as much as one of my employees, I should bear a tax burden that is 50 times bigger than his?

Why not just take over the government and start that worker's paradise Marx kept talking about? Oh yeah, thats right. They tried it once and it didn't work out too well.

The most vocal critics of the rich are the ones who have no idea how much the rich do to pay for their ungrateful, bitter asses. Learn the tax code, do some analysis of the respective tax burdens paid at different income breaks and then come back and talk to me. Until then, your ignorance of the issue is getting in the way of any meaningful discussion on the subject.

Plese provide the IRS statistics showing the percentages you propose.

-Demosthenes

__________________
"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

I asked you to look it up.

Go to www.irs.gov and find do the grunt work yourself. You can get federal income tax there. Just remember there is a decent chunk that is not taxed if you add up the deductions and exemptions. Then it stair steps over time 15%, 28% and so on way up into the 30s. So if I have an employee who has half of their income taxed at 15% and the other half covered by deductions and exemptions, then their effective tax rate is pretty low. Mine is maxed out in the 30's with the exemptions and deductions being a much smaller % of the total income. Also I have all of their payroll taxes I pay on their behalf (my business is a subchapter S), I pay property taxes that are much higher (a local homestead exemption eliminates the taxable value of many of my employees houses), state income tax, sales tax, etc.

To top it all off, I not only pay for my fair share of taxes and their fair share of taxes, I also give them great company benefits. A great BlueCross PPO with a 20 dollar copay, long term and short term disability, 75K in term life insurance and a 401K that matches dollar for dollar up to 6% of their taxable income with 100% vesting from the start. Also I give generously to local charities in the general area of healthcare. Now I get to hear some guy tell me I am not giving enough to the greater good. I have some guy telling me that I am the problem and now he even wants me to take the time to look up the public information that verifies my point.

Sorry if I was so harsh before. That really was not polite of me. Still, I hope you can understand how frustrating it is to be judged by someone who has no clue what you (or people like you) do or what you give. Anyway, sorry for the earlier harsh statements about ignorance. I should have found a more tactful way to say it.

Here is a summary of the statistics for the distribution of wealth in the US as
of 1998, the most recent information available that has been fully analyzed:

% of US Population % of Wealth Owned
================================================== ========
Top 1% 38.1%
Top 96-99% 21.3%
Top 90-95% 11.5%
Top 80-89% 12.5%
Top 60-79% 11.9%
General 40-59% 4.5%
Bottom 40% 0.2%

You can find this illustrated in a graph at United for a Fair Economy (UFE):
http://www.ufenet.org/research/wealth_charts.html


Tax Policy Center's Distribution of Tax Burden 2001
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/TaxFa....cfm?Docid=220


Using both the chart posted and the link to the other chart, do the math, the top 20% of tax payers possess approx. 83.4% of the wealth. ( I arrived at the number from adding the % of wealth of the top 20% in the top chart). In 2002, the top 20% carried approx. 67% of the tax burden ( I arrived at this number by adding the Share of Fed. Taxes Post-EGTRRA of the top 20%). The lowest 40% of the population has .2 % of the wealth and carry approx 5% of the tax burden. So in my eyes, yes the tax burden that each group pays is not proportionate and levy more of the burden on the poor.

-Demosthenes

__________________
"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

A national sales tax is an excellent idea, but barring that a flat tax would be a step in the right direction.

This is an apples to oranges comparison. Wealth is income accumulated over time. Most taxes are based on income. Since you chart was not comparing income earned to taxes, its not really a direct relationship.

Of course some people who earn more will save more and, over time, this will lead to wealth. This does not, however, mean that the wealth is not being constuctively used. If you valued my company, it would show a level of wealth far beyond my lifestyle. This is because I have poured the profits back into my company to create more good paying jobs with great benefits. Someday I will cash out, but for now that money is helping Americans far more efficiently than it would if it went into government hands. Right now my wealth is serving one heck of a public good by providing jobs and benefits.

If you want to do a valid comparison, then stack up taxes paid to income earned by these same population breaks and lets see what we have.

By your own statistics, however, we have 20% of the population paying for something like 58.7% of the taxes. Do you think the top 20% of the taxpayers use 60% of the government services? Or is it just our privallege to pay everyone else's fair share after we have created jobs and benefits for these same people. What ever happened to the concept of self reliance in this entitlement crazy world we now live in?

I give you alot of credit putting your money back into your business and taking care of your employees. It is a very honorable trait and is rare in todays business world. I work for a company right now that has been sold 5 times in the past 7 years. And this is not some small local company, it is the largest company in it's industry field. Everytime the company is sold, the new owners downsize one aspect of the company, get profits up and sell to another group. It sucks. So like I said, I give you alot of credit.

I think we may be at a point we aren't going to be able to convince each other of our view on this. To me wealth distribution is a very important factor when determining the distribution of the tax burden. Obviously you think otherwise. No, I admit that the top 20% don't use 60% of the Gov't spends. However I am willing to bet that the people in Gov't are a heck of alot more accessible to the top 20% then they are to the bottom 40%.

Basically, it boils down to this. I have more sympathy for a person who makes $20,000 a year and pays roughly $3000 in taxes than I do for the guy who makes $2,000,000 a year and pays 300,000 in taxes. The poor guys only got $17,000 to take care of him and his family with. The other guy has $1,700,000, boohoo for him.

-Demosthenes

__________________
"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

not everyone in that bracket makes $2 million. Some make $100K, and while that sounds like a lot it isn't much if you're a family of 4 in NYC. Yet that puts you in the top 10%. I have plenty of sympathy for people like that who had to bust their hump to get to that position only to watch them carry the burden for the permanently unemployed.

The hard part of this discussion for me is that a rich person who has, say 100,000 sitting around, can, with just a little effort, turn it into more cash.

For example, there are a lot of foreclosures in my area that are really great deals. Someone with a lot of cash can take the time to go to the auctions and buy property and sell it for tons more soon after. Sure they'd pay capital gains taxes but to them it's still a good deal.

But a poor person won't get the credit and will never have that kind of money to pay cash for such a deal. This is the reason the bottom 40% only have 0.2% of the wealth. It's so easy to make more money if you have it. I don't see how this could ever change in a capitalistic system. And as a rich person, the only reason not to make such a sure deal would be if the capital gains taxes were so high that they would take all the profits, which is what people like Nader are advocating.