Our Tax Burden

Will this whining about taxes ever stop?

I will now reprint three paragraphs from an article by Benyamin Appelbaum and Robert Gebeloff from the New York Times of November 30.  [And yes, that is how Benyamin spells his name.]  

...in fact, most Americans in 2010 paid far less in total taxes--federal, state and local--than they would have 30 years ago.  According to an analysis by the New York Times, the combination of all income taxes, sales taxes and property taxes took a smaller share of their income than it took from households with the same inflation-adjusted income in 1980.

Households earning more than $200,000 benefited from the largest percentage declines in total taxation as a share of income.  Middle-income households benefited, too.  More than 85 percent of households with earnings above $25,000 paid less in total taxes than comparable households in 1980.

Lower-income households, however, saved little or nothing.  Many pay no federal income taxes, but they do pay a range of other levies, like federal payroll taxes, state sales taxes and local property taxes.  Only about half of taxpaying households with incomes below $25,000 paid less less than in 2010.

Let’s step on the gas and go right over the rim of the fiscal cliff.