Taxing the Rich

No, not really. The top 1% pay nearly half the income taxes.

From your same report: "The share of reported income earned by the top 1 percent of taxpayers rose slightly to 20.7 percent in 2015. Their share of federal individual income taxes fell slightly, to 39.0 percent."This is the problem people are trying to point out. Yes, poor people pay a lower % of their income in taxes than rich people, because the real number is more important due to the static cost of goods across all income brackets.The problem is, everyone expects people to pi

It is extremely unlikely that you are paying more in taxes than any of the super rich. You are complaining about how the tax code treats wages vs investment/passive income.The reality is (as of 2016) the top 1% pay 37% of the total income tax bill. The top 5% (income>198K) pay 58%. The top 10% 69.5%.On the other hand, the bottom 90% pay 30% of the tax bill, the bottom 50% only 3%.

why do you think the rich pay a "disproportionately" large amount of taxes

Considering that the top 1% of taxpayers pay more in income taxes than the bottom 90% combined I would say the rich are already taxed.

Your statements about "percentage of income taxes" are misleading. Two points:1. Your 3% and 39% actually reflect how much more absolute income the rich generate compared to others. For example, if a rich person has $10 million in income and someone from the bottom 50% person has $100k in income, even a 15% income tax (for example) is $1.5 million and $15k respectively. Given our massive wealth inequality, your 39% income tax number tells us that the top 1% are capturing a massive c

Are these the top in income or wealth? Because afaik most taxes are on income. If you accumulate a lot of wealth and do not proportionally generate income from it (think of private real estate), your tax rate should drop by that measure, right?

Imagine a government with eleven citizens, ten of which earn a thousand dollars a year and pay 50% income tax on each dollar, while the eleventh earns one million dollars a year and pays just 10% income tax on each dollar. If the government then spends every tax dollar on building a road, that road has been ~95% paid for by one citizen and ~5% paid for by the other ten. It’s quite possible in principle for the wealthiest people to pay a lower tax rate than poorer people, yet still contribute dis

The rich do pay taxes, just a smaller portion of their income as compared to your average taxpayer. But that smaller portion is leaps and bounds larger than the bigger portion paid by the average taxpayer.I seem to recall some graph indicating that even though they pay 4-5x (or higher) lower percentage of their money in taxes, the higher amounts mean they shoulder most of the tax burdon.I don't think the percentage difference is ultimately beneficial to society, but it's not corr

How about closing the loopholes created for the rich which makes it that they end up paying a lower percentage of their income to taxes than many so-called "middle class people" do. Warren Buffett pointed out that his secretary pays higher taxes than he does (I'm assuming he's referring to an executive secretary having a six-figure salary).It's difficult to have discussions on our profligate government spending when a majority of the people don't believe everybod