>That's, of course, completely untrue in a world where refundable credits are a thing. Tax bills are not limited to non-negative numbers. Tax breaks and one's

>That's, of course, completely untrue in a world where refundable credits are a thing. Tax bills are not limited to non-negative numbers. Tax breaks and one's total tax obligation are two different things. >(Also, lots of non-rich people pay taxes, even if you only mean personal income tax.) A lot of people think they pay taxes, but they don't. And we'd need to define rich to really reach an agreement on the truthfulness of that statement. According to the CBO [1] (table 1 on page 31), households in the lower three quintiles of income are not net tax payers at the federal level. The gap in what they pay and what they receive in services is large enough that it offsets state and local taxes. Reviewing the table I referenced above, I would agree that lots of non-rich people pay taxes. But the majority of non-rich people do not. [1] https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-2016/reports/51361-householdincomefedtaxesonecol.pdf https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-...