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Politics : View from the Center and Left

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To: Cogito who wrote (140936)	7/16/2010 5:15:00 AM
From: Paul Smith	Read Replies (2) of 542827

thesis that the poor don't pay enough in taxes? I think everybody should pay some amount of income tax, even if it is a token amount (perhaps 1%) but that is not the main thought I was trying to communicate. Two things - I refer to the rich as the undefined rich because there is a strong reluctance to define where rich starts - is it $1 billion or is it $100K? A lot of middle class people are paying the "alternative minimum tax" that was supposedly designed for the rich. Back to the statistics - when you have a tax system that is designed for large percentages of people to pay zero tax and very small percentages of people to pay a large proportion of the total taxes, the system is already very progressive. Income taxes are not supposed to be a penalty system for bad behavior like cigarette taxes. There is constant talk about what is the right share of taxes to be paid by various groups, as in "they don't pay their fair share." That implies an opinion about how progressive or how non-progressive the system may be. Because such a large percentage of people pay zero, the system is by design very progressive. Taxes can not be cut below zero.

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