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essentialsaltesBusiness Insider has provided a nice display on 'What the Wall Street Protesters are Angry About'
It's worth a read, though some of them I can't get all that upset about. What's that? Rich people are rich?
But let's turn to Figure 7
The top 20% of earners pay 64.3% of the taxes paid. That means they're paying more than three times their per capita 'fair share'.
Oh but wait, that top 20% earns 59.1% of the income. So their share of taxes works out to being 8.8% greater than their per-income 'fair share'. Woohoo! Soak the rich! Make them pay... 9% more.
Of course, those deadbeats at the bottom barely pay 54% of their fair share. Then again, they only have 3.5% of the total income. Hardly worth taking.
It's worth a read, though some of them I can't get all that upset about. What's that? Rich people are rich?
But let's turn to Figure 7
The top 20% of earners pay 64.3% of the taxes paid. That means they're paying more than three times their per capita 'fair share'.
Oh but wait, that top 20% earns 59.1% of the income. So their share of taxes works out to being 8.8% greater than their per-income 'fair share'. Woohoo! Soak the rich! Make them pay... 9% more.
Of course, those deadbeats at the bottom barely pay 54% of their fair share. Then again, they only have 3.5% of the total income. Hardly worth taking.
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Date: 2011-10-13 10:07 pm (UTC)http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/indtaxstats/article/0,,id=129270,00.html
Regardless, I'm not sure where your confusion lies. There's no way to directly square one statistic with the other without more data. If it helps, think of it this way: If the top 1% made 99% of the money, they'd pay 99% of the taxes even if everyone's tax rate were only 5%.