re: #149 wheat-dogghazi

You could try using this as an analogy. It’s the birthday problem. For a given number n of people in a room, what’s the probability that two of them share the same birthday? en.wikipedia.org

n p(n)
5 2.7%
10 11.7%
20 41.1%
23 50.7%
30 70.6%
40 89.1%
50 97.0%
60 99.4%
70 99.9%
100 99.99997%
200 99.9999999999999999999999999998%

Any number above 70 almost guarantees two will share the same birthday out of 365 possibilities.

Handwaving argument follows, since I am not a statistician.

In a similar way, if the distribution of taxpayers is random, then within any person’s circle of friends, family, co-workers, etc., there should be at least one person who pays no taxes. In fact, the number should be more than one.

True. But the fact is that one’s circle of friends and acquaintances is generally not a random distribution of taxpayers.