re: #157 Targetpractice

The goalposts seem to be moving fast these days. The wingnuts I’ve been chatting with seem to have gone back to their default on taxes in the wake of Romney’s statements about the rates he pays, pushing the ol’ “The rich pay all the taxes!” without acknowledging that they do so in raw dollar amounts. That the reality is closer to them paying a smaller percentage of their total income annually than their secretaries. Yet if their secretary is paid so little that she actually pays nothing in income taxes, she’s a “freeloader” who’s dragging the country down.

theamericanconservative.com

But millions of Americans who do not pay federal income taxes do pay federal payroll taxes. These taxes are regressive, and the dirty little secret is that over the last several decades they have made up a greater and greater share of federal revenues. In 1950, payroll and other federal retirement contributions constituted 10.9 percent of all federal revenues. By 2007, the last “normal” economic year before federal revenues began falling, they made up 33.9 percent. By contrast, corporate income taxes were 26.4 percent of federal revenues in 1950. By 2007 they had fallen to 14.4 percent. So who has skin in the game?