I don’t want to derail this thread with a discussion of whether that’s comparing apples and oranges. (FICA can be considered equivalent to pension or 401k contributions, for example, and sales tax and property taxes are not based on income at all). Even the issue of taxes is not directly related to the OP.
But… just one more illustration from the IRS numbers for 2007:
As a percentage of income, people with 25k-100k in taxable income pay 7.1% of their taxable income in federal income tax.
As a percentage of income, people with more than $10 million in taxable income pay 22.9% of their taxable income in federal income tax.
That’s a 16% difference, which is a pretty high hurdle even if you do include FICA, sales, property and state income taxes.
