# What is a fair amount of tax for the rich to pay? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 26, 2010, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-fair-amount-of-tax-for-the-rich-to-pay/537416 "2010-04-26T16:52:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![Ruminator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Ruminator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruminator)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2010, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-fair-amount-of-tax-for-the-rich-to-pay/537416/281 "2010-05-01T00:15:44Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > If we want to be fair we need to adjust the tax rate to more or less match the marginal utility of the money to each income level. We can’t do this perfectly, but it is the only way to be fair. That’s your definition of fairness and many disagree. Fairness can also be defined by deliberately ignoring the “marginal utility of money” and charge everyone the same %. That’s also a reasonable sense of fairness. You disagree with it, I know. Anyways, we do not adjust the price of hamburgers, haircuts, bottled water, rice, cars, homes, etc based a particular individual’s income. If McDonald’s charges 99 cents for a hamburger, it’s the same price of 99 cents to me, you, or Bill Gates. It’s only government taxes (and sometimes college tuition fees) that charges varying prices based on current income. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2010, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-fair-amount-of-tax-for-the-rich-to-pay/537416/282 "2010-05-01T00:58:38Z")
> [@Ruminator](#): > > That’s your definition of fairness and many disagree. > > Fairness can also be defined by deliberately ignoring the “marginal utility of money” and charge everyone the same %. That’s also a reasonable sense of fairness. You disagree with it, I know. Well sure. You can define fairness as not charging those poor rich people who work so hard for the economy anything. You can define it as charging everyone the same absolute amount. But do you have a reasonable definition of fairness - not considering the evils of taxation - under which these make sense? > [@](#): > > Anyways, we do not adjust the price of hamburgers, haircuts, bottled water, rice, cars, homes, etc based a particular individual’s income. If McDonald’s charges 99 cents for a hamburger, it’s the same price of 99 cents to me, you, or Bill Gates. It’s only government taxes (and sometimes college tuition fees) that charges varying prices based on current income. Actually we do. Our society has various levels of products in all these areas which allow people to spend a reasonably consistent value of money on these products. The Times yesterday had an article about $550 designer pants that look just like Dockers. While people who buy them must derive some additional value from them, I suspect quite a bit of it is that the utility of the money they spend to them is not that far from the utility of the money normal people spend at Macy’s or WalMart. Sure Gates could spend 99 cents at McDonalds. He could also drive a beat up heap he bought off a used car lot. Bet he doesn’t, because the cost to him of a luxury car is less than the cost of the beater to some kid right out of college. People can slum because they enjoy it - that is different. ---
**Author:** ![Ruminator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Ruminator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruminator)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2010, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-fair-amount-of-tax-for-the-rich-to-pay/537416/283 "2010-05-01T01:36:04Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > You can define fairness as not charging those poor rich people who work so hard for the economy anything. You can define it as charging everyone the same absolute amount. But do you have a reasonable definition of fairness - not considering the evils of taxation - under which these make sense? We don’t tax churches. Many of them aren’t exactly skimping by. And exempting churches from taxes has nothing to do with rhetoric about “fair or unfair.” Would it be better for the country if they were taxed? I dunno. As for not taxing the businessman, yes I could see how a government could rationalize _not_ taxing a rich person if the government thought he could bring economic growth to the area. It wouldn’t look like a straight exemption though. It would be disguised as a tax moratorium or creative subsidy. This scenario also wouldn’t have anything to do with fair/unfair – the government in this case is simply making an objective bet that not taxing the businessman to lure him to the area would bring jobs, thereby increasing the overall tax base. The government basically is doing it by calculated greed vs trying to dole out “fairness.” > [@Voyager](#): > > Actually we do. Our society has various levels of products in all these areas which allow people to spend a reasonably consistent value of money on these products. The Times yesterday had an article about $550 designer pants that look just like Dockers. That’s _market segmentation_ and different from what I was talking about. I’m emphasizing that we don’t charge different prices for the exact same item/service by first examining what buyers’ incomes are. When I get a haircut, the barber does not ask to see my last 12 months of paystubs to calculate how much he should charge me. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2010, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-fair-amount-of-tax-for-the-rich-to-pay/537416/284 "2010-05-01T02:38:47Z")
There are plenty of people who can do what the financial experts did. Many are in jail where they belong. If bilking and lying to your customers is a talent. They have clearly demonstrated it. Hell ,Paulson almost scammed us into turning the entire economy into his piggy bank. Then ,once he got the reign over TARP he changed his mind. Where is the value in what they did? ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2010, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-fair-amount-of-tax-for-the-rich-to-pay/537416/285 "2010-05-01T06:34:03Z")
I’m still not sure if I get the “taxes aren’t fair crowd”. Fact 1: rich people pay more than their “share” of taxes relative to their income. Fact 2: taxes are more “fair” to rich people now than they were in the recent past. Fact 3: the proportion of income earned by the rich is greater than it was in the recent past. So let’s now make taxes more “fair”. The only possible outcome is that the rich will pay less taxes and everyone else will pay more, where “everyone else” is somewhere between 80-90% of taxpayers. Is this really what the people screaming about this want? To raise taxes on most Americans? Not only that, a flat tax with a large exemption for the first n dollars would mean that the poor would pay even less taxes than they do now. So are the advocates really proposing a change to the tax system that would end up with the poor and the rich paying less taxes than they do now, and the middle-class paying more? ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2010, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-fair-amount-of-tax-for-the-rich-to-pay/537416/286 "2010-05-01T11:42:26Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Okay, but the tax rate changes hardly cause churn, and it seems that you are willing to change them every year anyway. To lower them if the economy is booming > [@](#): > > Not necessarily. If you are opposed to the tax code being used to encourage or discourage behavior, then maybe. But if you favor the government encouraging saving, or encouraging sending children to college, or encouraging home ownership or charity, then no. The way we do it today, there is one form and one time that you apply, as it were, for your home owning or college incentive, and it is all done on one form. One government agency processes everything. Isn’t this simpler than requesting your mortgage incentive from one agency and your college incentive from another. Not really. If we’re going to have an income tax as citizens then let it be about income. Other issues should be dealt with separately. The incentive door is a big part of what makes it so complicated. > [@](#): > > And the incentives are going to happen. Call it a high minded attempt to do good, or a low minded bribe to constituents, but it will happen. I suppose you’re right. > [@](#): > > Look, assume that the government needs a certain amount of money and that the flat tax is revenue neutral. You make sure that the poor get a break, fine. Who else gets a break? Unless you tax the middle class at the same average tax rate as the rich, which would raise their taxes a ton and not be revenue neutral, you clearly cut the taxes on the rich and to be revenue neutral increase taxes on the middle class. That sounds like a terrible idea to me. Unless a much simplified tax code encourages business big and small and creates a better economy for all. Some folks believe that’s the case with a flat tax but from the reading I’ve done in the past few days it’s still in question. Part of the overall economic picture isn’t just the tax code but costs of goods and standard of living which is too complex to get into here. > [@](#): > > Nothing to do with year to year changes. The incremental value of making a dollar diminishes with each dollar you make, this is called [the marginal utility of money](http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/175473.html). You recognize this yourself - you don’t want to tax the poor because the value of each dollar they have is very high. If you make $30K, getting an extra $1k is very significant. If you are Bill Gates it isn’t worth noticing. I got an unexpected $1,000 bonus, it was cool, and I think I bought a book to celebrate (for $10) but it went into my investments and was hardly noticed. If you or I won the lottery it would change our lives - if Gates won the lottery he’d just give it away. I appreciate this explanation and will give it consideration. It’s just that for those who cry the rich should pay more a flat tax does that. The rich do pay considerably more and we might be able to eliminate a lot of tax shelters by simplifying the tax code. I do recognize that we could simplify the tax code a lot and still have a progressive tax system. > [@](#): > > Similarly, a tax of $1,000 extra would be a killer for the poor, a pain but not a disaster for me, and hardly noticeable for the rich. If we want to be fair we need to adjust the tax rate to more or less match the marginal utility of the money to each income level. We can’t do this perfectly, but it is the only way to be fair. > Of course I understand that marginal utility must be less than linear for this argument to work. [It is.](http://homepage.newschool.edu/het//essays/uncert/bernoulhyp.htm) > Certainly the tax rate can be adjusted based on spending and national income; what we are discussing is how to distribute taxes for a given tax requirement. I’m paying a higher percentage in tax now than when I started to work, but I feel it less, so the higher percentage is fair to me. During the bubble I shot into the highest bracket and I wish I was there still. I guess the question for me is how much of this should we do through the income tax code, but I suppose, realistically, no matter how we distribute the burden someone is gong to bitch. Thanks for the input. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2010, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-fair-amount-of-tax-for-the-rich-to-pay/537416/287 "2010-05-01T14:27:35Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > To lower them if the economy is booming Then that means you will raise them during a bust, which is the worst possible thing to do. What needs to happen is build up a surplus during booms and then use that surplus to continue funding govt or temporarily lower taxes. The reason we are in the trouble we are now is that Bush cut taxes during a boom and then when the economy went south, and we had two wars to fund, we had to go into massive deficit spending. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2010, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-fair-amount-of-tax-for-the-rich-to-pay/537416/288 "2010-05-01T20:26:10Z")
In the 50s the tax rate on those making over 3 million a year was 92 percent. Congress ,who works for them, kept chopping it down. Now it is 28 percent. For the top 400 ,the IRS says they paid 16 percent. The top 400 made about 1.4 trillion dollars last year. If we cranked their rate up by 10 percent, we would solve a lot of our budgetary problems. They would survive quite fine. So the rich got what they wanted. Did they invest in industry and jobs? Of course not, they invested in the Financial instruments the banks sold. They don’t have any interest in job creation. They just want more money. Their wealth went up 16 percent last year while the economy and jobs tanked. People eat the sophistry of taxing the rich with a spoon. They will create jobs. Did they? hell no. They rewarded themselves and others like them with huge salaries ,bonuses and retirements. Did that create jobs. Nope. They invested in banking instruments that destroyed homeownership. The rich have no interest in job creation unless it makes them richer. That is why they move jobs overseas. They know it is bad for America, but they don’t care. They just want more money. We have a lot of debt. It was their doing. They should be paying for fixing it. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2010, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-fair-amount-of-tax-for-the-rich-to-pay/537416/289 "2010-05-01T21:15:46Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > I’m still not sure if I get the “taxes aren’t fair crowd”. Fact 1: rich people pay more than their “share” of taxes relative to their income. Fact 2: taxes are more “fair” to rich people now than they were in the recent past. Fact 3: the proportion of income earned by the rich is greater than it was in the recent past. > > So let’s now make taxes more “fair”. The only possible outcome is that the rich will pay less taxes and everyone else will pay more, where “everyone else” is somewhere between 80-90% of taxpayers. This is where people diverge and no agreement will ever result. You’re looking out outcome. I,and other, look at process. The process is either fair or it isn’t. It doesn’t matter how many people wind up paying what. I start with two tenets. 1) The government should keep taxes (revenues) low across the board. As low as they can while doing the things they need to do. 2) People should be treated equally, as we all have an equal responsibility to contribute to the government coffers. I thin it is fair that we not all contribute the same dollar amount (though the argument could be made), but that we all contribute the same percentage. In essence, we all work the same X number days for the government and the rest of the year for ourselves. Very similar to tithing. How much should you contribute to your church? X%. Simple. Fair. Now, we know that not everyone can pay. Some can’t pay anything because they don’t have a job. Some are disabled, etc. And others have such a low income that if we extract money from them there’s a likelihood that we’d have to give them back more in government services. So, we establish some cut off point—and income of $X thousands of dollars. No it is not a pure flat tax, but it gets us closer to fairness. Why should Person A have to work January thru May for the government and Person B have to work only from January thru March? Now, I also think that it would be a good thing to have those who do not pay any taxes contribute _something_. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere on these boards, they can spend a few days a year cleaning up beaches and parks, painting local schools, sweeping streets, etc. I really think this would be a good thing for society and the people doing the work themselves. I know I feel better when I pay my fair share on anything from a restaurant tab to taking care of family members and paying my taxes. > [@DanBlather](#): > > Is this really what the people screaming about this want? To raise taxes on most Americans? Not only that, a flat tax with a large exemption for the first n dollars would mean that the poor would pay even less taxes than they do now. So are the advocates really proposing a change to the tax system that would end up with the poor and the rich paying less taxes than they do now, and the middle-class paying more? I think the simple question is: should the system be fair? Or just result in the greatest number of people paying taxes the least amount in taxes possible? ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2010, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-fair-amount-of-tax-for-the-rich-to-pay/537416/290 "2010-05-01T21:29:49Z")
[Boot Jack Ranch In Colorado Sells For $46.5 Million, Becomes Largest Residential Transaction Of 2010 | HuffPost Denver](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/30/bootjack-ranch-in-colorad_n_559227.html) I suppose cranking the guys tax rate up a few points would just break him wouldn’t it? They are beyond rich. These are the homes of the ultra rich , who of course would trot out and create jobs if they got another tax break. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2010, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-fair-amount-of-tax-for-the-rich-to-pay/537416/291 "2010-05-01T21:42:23Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > Then that means you will raise them during a bust, which is the worst possible thing to do. What needs to happen is build up a surplus during booms and then use that surplus to continue funding govt or temporarily lower taxes. > > The reason we are in the trouble we are now is that Bush cut taxes during a boom and then when the economy went south, and we had two wars to fund, we had to go into massive deficit spending. The top 400 went up in wealth by 16 percent last year. For them it is not a bust but a boom time. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2010, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-fair-amount-of-tax-for-the-rich-to-pay/537416/292 "2010-05-01T21:58:44Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > This is where people diverge and no agreement will ever result. You’re looking out outcome. I,and other, look at process. Interesting. You’d have a flat tax even if it made the economy suffer and people worse off. I guess we do differ. ---
**Author:** ![MemoryLeak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6f9a4e/32.png) [@MemoryLeak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MemoryLeak)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2010, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-fair-amount-of-tax-for-the-rich-to-pay/537416/293 "2010-05-01T23:47:19Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > The top 400 made about 1.4 trillion dollars last year. What’s so fascinating is that you would just parrot that and not even think about what that would mean if it were true. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2010, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-fair-amount-of-tax-for-the-rich-to-pay/537416/294 "2010-05-02T02:03:58Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > Then that means you will raise them during a bust, which is the worst possible thing to do. Thanks so much for telling me what I mean. I’m not sure I could have figured that out without your help. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2010, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-fair-amount-of-tax-for-the-rich-to-pay/537416/295 "2010-05-02T02:15:57Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > Thanks so much for telling me what I mean. I’m not sure I could have figured that out without your help. No problem, you need the help. So far you have advocated a tax system that will lower taxes on the rich, have even more people at the low end get a free ride, and raise taxes on the middle class. Then you want to lower tax rates during a boom, which leads to having to raise them during a bust so that you’ll have less demand and prolong an economic turn down. I’m looking for the trifecta of poor public policy. How about returning to the gold standard? ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2010, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-fair-amount-of-tax-for-the-rich-to-pay/537416/296 "2010-05-02T14:35:15Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > Interesting. You’d have a flat tax even if it made the economy suffer and people worse off. I guess we do differ. Yeah, that’s exactly what I meant. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2010, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-fair-amount-of-tax-for-the-rich-to-pay/537416/297 "2010-05-02T15:19:28Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Yeah, that’s exactly what I meant. :rolleyes: Well what else can > [@](#): > > You’re looking out outcome. I,and other, look at process. The process is either fair or it isn’t. mean? The outcome doesn’t matter, only that the process is that which you define as “fair”. Or did you not mean what you wrote? Feel free to retract or to clarify. **Dan** , your initial > [@](#): > > Fact 1: rich people pay more than their “share” of taxes relative to their income. is [not](http://www.ctj.org/pdf/taxday2009.pdf) completely true (warning, pdf), or rather is only true under particular definitions of “rich”. The biggest share relative to income is not paid by the top 1% or the next 4%. The 90-94.9%ile pays the biggest share relative to income - that group, with an average income of $144K, pays 32.2% of total income to total taxes, while the top 1% pays 30.9%. The entire lower 99% averages 29.4% of total income paid for total taxes, so they don’t even pay much more per unit income than the average Joe. The lower 20% does get off a little easier, paying 18.7% of their income to total taxes. Now I suspect that this board has an over representation of well educated professional sorts that are likely clustered near enough that $144K average that they fall into the 90-95%ile or pretty damn close. And likely few who make enough to be in that top 1% ([$348K plus](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/business/29tax.html) in 2007). Is it “fair” that the 90-95%ile group pays more of their total income in taxes than does the top 1%? ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2010, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-fair-amount-of-tax-for-the-rich-to-pay/537416/298 "2010-05-02T15:55:32Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > **Dan** , your initial is [not](http://www.ctj.org/pdf/taxday2009.pdf) completely true (warning, pdf), or rather is only true under particular definitions of “rich”. The biggest share relative to income is not paid by the top 1% or the next 4%. The 90-94.9%ile pays the biggest share relative to income - that group, with an average income of $144K, pays 32.2% of total income to total taxes, while the top 1% pays 30.9%. The entire lower 99% averages 29.4% of total income paid for total taxes, so they don’t even pay much more per unit income than the average Joe. The lower 20% does get off a little easier, paying 18.7% of their income to total taxes. Thanks, I love facts. They are often surprising. I wonder if the reason that the 90-94% crowd pays higher taxes is because a fair amount of their income is subject to payroll taxes, but for the ultra-rich it is negligible because it is only on the first $70K-something of salary. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2010, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-fair-amount-of-tax-for-the-rich-to-pay/537416/299 "2010-05-02T16:17:56Z")
It’s pretty funny looking at that PDF. Essentially it’s saying that the outcome of the current tax system is pretty much what the advocates of the flat tax would like to have. Most people pay close to their share of taxes relative to income, with those at the bottom paying relatively less. Using **CosmoDan** ’s exemptions, the first 20-40% of households would pay no taxes at all (state, local or federal) and we’d need to spread their current share of taxes over the rest, giving a tax rate of somewhat more than 31%. That would be a tax increase for 60% of households and some hard to calculate number of households in the 2nd quintile. That means that the tea party demographic would pay more. They could take solace, however, in knowing that the richest 1% would pay less. All of the above, however, ignores that fact that we have a huge deficit. The actual tax rates would need to be a higher for a while, or there would need to be draconian budget cuts in the range of 20% plus. I’d start with Medicare as it’s a win-win: waste less on health care for old people and then when they die early we’d save money on social security as well. This would make quite a platform: We are going to raise your taxes, lower them on the richest 1%, have the free-loaders on the bottom pay nothing, and cut your Medicare benefits. I’m not sure I’d want to give that speech to armed Tea Partiers. ETA: fixed typos ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2010, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-fair-amount-of-tax-for-the-rich-to-pay/537416/300 "2010-05-02T16:50:10Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > **Dan** , your initial is [not](http://www.ctj.org/pdf/taxday2009.pdf) completely true (warning, pdf), or rather is only true under particular definitions of “rich”. The biggest share relative to income is not paid by the top 1% or the next 4%. The 90-94.9%ile pays the biggest share relative to income - that group, with an average income of $144K, pays 32.2% of total income to total taxes, while the top 1% pays 30.9%. The entire lower 99% averages 29.4% of total income paid for total taxes, so they don’t even pay much more per unit income than the average Joe. The lower 20% does get off a little easier, paying 18.7% of their income to total taxes. > > Is it “fair” that the 90-95%ile group pays more of their total income in taxes than does the top 1%? I always figured the folks making from approximately $90k-$110k were getting hosed the most because most or all of their income is subject to the SS tax. It’s become a struggle for the hearts and minds of that group because the wealthy tell them “If only the government would get off your back a little, you could be rich like us!”, while the working class and struggling middle class are telling them “The wealthy business interests have been sucking us dry, and you’re next.” Also, the numbers in that PDF indicate that state and local taxes aren’t all that progressive. I’m betting some of these struggling states are way too reliant on sales taxes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-fair-amount-of-tax-for-the-rich-to-pay/537416.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-fair-amount-of-tax-for-the-rich-to-pay/537416.md?page=16)