4 ms·

Poor people already pay next to nothing in taxes - the bottom 60% of society, making less than $50k only contributes 7% of total tax revenue from income taxes,

by 988747 4y ago

Poor people already pay next to nothing in taxes - the bottom 60% of society, making less than $50k only contributes 7% of total tax revenue from income taxes, while 0.3% of those making more than $1M per year contributes 27%. [1] I think the US has pretty good revenue structure in that regard. In my country 62% of federal budget comes from sales taxes (e.g. 23% VAT), which disproportionately affects poor people. [1] https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2017/january/federal-income-taxes-bracket https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2017/january/feder...

greedo 4y ago
Your first sentence ignores what you say in the second. In the US, poor people pay a significant portion of their income in sales tax which is regressive.
- 988747 4y ago
  Yes, I kind of missed that. On the other hand, sales tax in the US is very low compared to European VAT (0-7% vs 18-25% VAT), so it's much smaller issue.
  - black_13 4y ago
    [dead]
Beldin 4y ago
I would suggest to think of this not in terms of contribution to the whole, but percentage of ($income - $housing - $food - $stdxpenses). With $stdxpenses covering standard living expenses including energy, water, basic insurance, basic commute. I would be somewhat surprised (rather flabbergasted) if rich folks paid anywhere close to the percentage that poor people do. In other words: if you want to compare by measuring contribution, measure tax rate to what's left for that individual's personal use.