Reply #21: Congratulations, you are on the right track.

[bigbrother05]

Reminds me of the old joke about the average income in a bar is $500M if Bill Gates is having a drink.

Just think about how much money they had to make to pay that much in taxes. Also, the lower earners will pay FICA (Soc Sec tax) on all their earnings while the high earners only on the first $95K or so. Also, think about the potential for the high earners to invest in tax shelters that reduce their tax bills. Just a few of these types of mental exercises will help you to understand the complexity of our economy and tax systems. This should also help you to understand how quoting a few simple statistics to "prove" a point verges on propaganda and says a lot about your teacher's mindset.

Don't recommend you go too far to challenge this authority figure in class (you are trying to change your career), but do try to use the questions and class work to educate yourself to the point of being able to reason through such broad concepts and you'll do just fine.