Mother Jones: Our Regressive Tax System:

[amborin]

snip

"Most people are surprised at how high the income cutoffs are. But that's how it works out. If you add up the incomes of every single household that makes less than $50,000 — all 50 million of them — they earn only a fifth of the total income. If you add up the tiny number of people who make more than $300,000, they also earn a fifth of total income. So now, instead of looking at our theoretical progressive system, let's see the actual numbers. Here they are:



As you can see, when you add up all federal taxes and compare it to where the money is, our system is only barely progressive at all. The bottom quintile doesn't do too badly, though they're probably paying a little more than they should, but CEOs and bankers are paying only slightly more than teachers and engineers. And if you add in state and local taxes, even this small amount of progressivity goes away. You can come at this from a lot of different angles, but you always end up with the same answer: taken as a whole, our tax system is close to flat. Does this seem fair to you? It shouldn't."

snip

<http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/04/my-tax-day-post>

[unpossibles]

1. thank you for posting this

I have often wondered why the standard line uses percentage of people instead of income.

[AtomicKitten]

2. Obama has asked Paul Volker to review the tax code.

Re: Reform.
ETA: 8 months.

[democracy1st]

3. K & R