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>> How do you explain this? How do I explain the top 10% paying over 70% of total federal taxes? I would wager a guess it has something to do with them having

>> How do you explain this? How do I explain the top 10% paying over 70% of total federal taxes? I would wager a guess it has something to do with them having about 70% of the total wealth of the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_Unite...

lostcolony 10y ago
This. The OP's particular numbers are -obviously- meaningless without including further context. If one person had all the money, literally, all the money, and paid any amount on it, be it one cent, or half of the money (either way leaving them with trillions, and everyone else still able to earn nothing), they'd be paying 100% of the taxes. This is an absurd hypothetical, but it demonstrates that the percentage of taxes paid by a particular group tells you nothing by itself.
srj 10y ago
You're assuming a large overlap between top 10% income and top 10% wealth. I'm not able to find great data on this, with most sources just focusing on one or the other. It seems to me though that many of the wealthiest individuals, including those drawing down retirement savings, probably have low W2 income.
- marrington 10y ago
  This discrepancy, and people's unwillingness to intellectually engage with it, is what allows the extremely wealthy to be just fine with society demonizing high income people. Once you have stored wealth, you don't care any more because there is no wealth tax (other than property tax and inflation). Taxing high income people into oblivion is what allows the very rich to keep their club small.
yummyfajitas 10y ago
Actually no, it's due to the high levels of progressivity of US income taxes relative to other nations. http://taxfoundation.org/blog/no-country-leans-upper-income-households-much-us http://taxfoundation.org/blog/no-country-leans-upper-income-...

lostcolony 10y ago

This. The OP's particular numbers are -obviously- meaningless without including further context. If one person had all the money, literally, all the money, and paid any amount on it, be it one cent, or half of the money (either way leaving them with trillions, and everyone else still able to earn nothing), they'd be paying 100% of the taxes. This is an absurd hypothetical, but it demonstrates that the percentage of taxes paid by a particular group tells you nothing by itself.

srj 10y ago

You're assuming a large overlap between top 10% income and top 10% wealth. I'm not able to find great data on this, with most sources just focusing on one or the other. It seems to me though that many of the wealthiest individuals, including those drawing down retirement savings, probably have low W2 income.

marrington 10y ago
This discrepancy, and people's unwillingness to intellectually engage with it, is what allows the extremely wealthy to be just fine with society demonizing high income people. Once you have stored wealth, you don't care any more because there is no wealth tax (other than property tax and inflation). Taxing high income people into oblivion is what allows the very rich to keep their club small.

yummyfajitas 10y ago

Actually no, it's due to the high levels of progressivity of US income taxes relative to other nations. http://taxfoundation.org/blog/no-country-leans-upper-income-households-much-us http://taxfoundation.org/blog/no-country-leans-upper-income-...