# Is there anything wrong with "class warfare"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 10, 2012, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-anything-wrong-with-class-warfare/634349 "2012-09-10T23:03:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 251
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-anything-wrong-with-class-warfare/634349/251 "2012-09-23T16:56:33Z")
> [@mmmbeer](#): > > What kind of math takes your starting point of each pays about 13 %, then I suggest that everyone’s tax rate should be 10%, so you make (this is kind of funny to me) only Romney’s rate 10% and to everyone else’s 13%, you add 10% to get 23%? Where do they teach math like this? I know word problems are tricky for some people, but this is, hell, I don’t know what this is. If you focused more on understanding, and less on finding humor, you might avoid being tricked. I specifically mention “Payroll tax.” Do you use Wikipedia? > **[Payroll tax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payroll_tax)** > > Payroll taxes are taxes imposed on employers or employees. They are usually calculated as a percentage of the salaries that employers pay their employees. By law, some payroll taxes are the responsibility of the employee and others fall on the employer, but almost all economists agree that the true economic incidence of a payroll tax is unaffected by this distinction, and falls largely or entirely on workers in the form of lower wages. Because payroll taxes fall exclusively on wage The Australi... > [@](#): > > Federal social insurance taxes are imposed equally on employers and employees, consisting of a tax of 6.2% of wages up to an annual wage maximum ($110,100 in 2012) for Social Security and a tax of 1.45% of all wages for Medicare. For the years 2011 and 2012, the employee’s contribution has been temporarily reduced to 4.2%, while the employer’s portion remained at 6.2%. When employer contribution is included (as it should be), the tax is 13.85% (or 11.85% with the “temporary reduction”). Assuming Romney pays the maximum payroll tax (13.85% of $110,100), it would still amount to less than 0.1% on his total income. So, given a 10% flat _income tax_, Romney would pay 10.1% _total tax_ (income plus payroll), while his secretary would pay 23.85%. You may _disapprove_ of this accounting. However in your posts to date, you didn’t express disapproval, just _incomprehension_. In future I hope you reread posts that seem to make no sense, rather than delighting in what seems “funny” or writing “Jesus, Joseph, and Mary.” I do accept part of the responsibility for failing to write “(including payroll tax)” in a large font from the get-go. 😃 > [@mmmbeer](#): > > Maybe I don’t know what you mean. Evidently. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-anything-wrong-with-class-warfare/634349)._