Federal income taxes account for just 27% of total government revenue collected in America. And the remaining three-quarters of the tax pie is quite regressive. The middle class may not pay much federal income tax. But they sure pay the payroll tax for Social Security and Medicare, which the rich can mostly skip out on since it only applies to the first $110,000 of wage income. (The Medicare levy, unlike its bigger Social Security counterpart, is not capped). The masses also pay a much greater share of their income in sales and excise taxes than the rich do, because they cannot afford to save.
The fact of the matter is that the American tax code as a whole is almost perfectly flat. The bottom 20% of earners make 3% of the income and pay 2% of the taxes; the middle 20% make 11% and pay 10%; and the top 1% make 21% and pay 22%. Steve Forbes couldn’t have drawn it up any better.http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/07/taxes-and-rich-0http://ctj.org/images/taxday2012table.jpg
