Mr. Rmoney, about 61% of those not paying Federal Income taxes do pay payroll taxes and various

[Bill USA]

taxes to the states and localities.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/09/18/who-doesnt-pay-taxes-in-charts/?tid=pm_business_pop

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The vast majority of households that don’t pay income taxes are either elderly or paying payroll taxes. As you can see below, 60 percent of those who don’t pay income tax are still working and paying taxes for Social Security and Medicare. Their tax liability is just too low to qualify for the income tax. Another 22 percent of non-payers are retirees.

Only about 7.9 percent of households are not paying any federal taxes at all. That’s usually because they’re either unemployed or on disability or students or are very poor.



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Federal taxes are just part of the picture. Most Americans also pay state and local taxes, such as sales taxes. These tend to be more regressive and hit lower-income groups harder. Here’s what the system looks like when you add up all taxes:




(note when you consider all taxes paid the wealthiest Americans aren't paying much more than the two lowest quintiles!- at least not much more when you consider that the top 1%, for example, have incomes many times those of the people in the first and second quintile.)

[freshwest]

1. Excellent thread. And we can't forget how many are children, right?

[MissMarple]

2. Nothing is certain but death and taxes.

"Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

—Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy, 1789

We all pay taxes of one kind or another. Romney can well afford them, the working poor, the elderly, the destitute and the disabled poor, not so much.