Richard Salsman on The Virtue of Lower Tax Rates on the Rich – Forbes:
The so-called tax deal between President Barack Obama and the GOP has opponents who claim it’s immoral because it “favors” rich Americans and defenders who insist it’ll boost growth, create jobs and narrow the budget deficit. Yet the deeper moral point, absent from both sides, is this one: The rich deserve their wealth as much as anyone, the relatively-higher tax rates they face are obscenely unjust, and if anything, the rich today should be paying radically lower tax rates.
Let’s start with basic tax facts. The IRS says that the top 1% of America’s income-earners ($380,354+) now generate 20% of all personal income, yet pay 38% of all federal income taxes, while the top 10% ($113,799+) earn 46% of the total personal income while paying 70% of all such taxes. The other 90% of tax filers, making 54% of personal income, pay just 30% of federal income taxes.
The disproportion is even worse when you consider that the bottom 50% of all federal tax filers (making $33,048 or less) earn only 13% of taxable income, yet pay a mere 3% of federal income taxes. The Tax Foundation calculates that the portion of U.S. federal tax returns with a zero tax liability is now more than 35% and climbing–nearly double the share in 1984.