Truth about taxes

It has been claimed that the top 1 percent pays 38 percent of the federal income tax, the top 5 percent pays 50 percent and the top 10 percent pays 70 percent. Let’s clarify these claims.

Most of the income of the top 10 percent does not come from working. In 2008, only 19 percent of income reported by individuals and families making over $10 million came from wages and salaries. The rest of their income comes from capital gains, i.e. stocks and hedge funds, which are taxed at a rate of 15 percent, roughly half of what middle-income earners are taxed.

If we count all of the taxes people pay from sales tax, property tax and payroll tax – not just income tax – the top 1 percent pays a smaller percentage of their incomes in tax than the 99 percent below them.

How then do the people at the top pay such a large percentage of federal income tax while paying a lower rate? The top 20 percent have 85 percent of the wealth in this country, and yet they whine about paying taxes. Tax capital gains at middle-income tax rates and we will have no debt problem.

David Randall

Spokane