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Originally Posted by Dom182  Heres my point. Between my wife and I we paid $39,320 in taxes. I think that is enough. As for tax rates currently in the US the top 1% earns 15% of the income and pays 30% of the burden. The top 5% pay 50%. Top 10 63% The top 20% pay 80%. The middle 40% pay 8% The bottom 20% pay no taxes at all. As a matter of fact they pay -2% meaning they get money. That doesn't sound like enslavement to me |
Here is the problem, Dom. You can't just look at the tax system on income. The wealthy 1% of the population don't really have any income from salary. The top 1% of America owns 40% of the wealth, whether it be real estate, stocks, etc... We have significantly lower taxes than every Western European country. And we have a much less progressive tax system than almost every Western European country. Thus, the rich in this country manage to retain a much higher share of their income than they do in other countries, and this enables them to accumulate a much higher amount of wealth than the rich in other countries.
Because the distribution of wealth is getting worse and worse as we speak, we need a tax on wealth. It's as simple as that. The top 5% in this country own over 60% of the wealth. That is incredibly uneven and no other developed industrialized country in the world comes even close.