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Location: Nashville, Tennessee, United States

4/11/2002

Unfair Share Tired of hearing proponents of a state income tax whine about "tax fairness" and claiming the rich are not paying their fair share? Show them this AP story, which boasted a great headline: Tax Burden Falls on the Wealthy

An excerpt:

For 1999, the most recent year for which complete Internal Revenue Service statistics were available, 6.3 million taxpayers whose incomes were in the top 5 percent paid more than 55 percent of all income taxes. They had adjusted gross incomes above $120,846 a year, meaning spouses could earn a bit over $60,000 each and be considered among the nation's richest.

The wealthiest 1 percent - those earning $293,415 and up - paid more than a third of the taxes, while their share of the nation's taxable income was 19 percent.

Taxpayers in the bottom half paid only 4 percent of income taxes in 1999, according to the IRS. These 63 million taxpayers earned, on average, less than $26,415 a year.


The cause of the rising inequity in taxation - in which a small minority pays most of the cost of government and a growing number of people pay little or nothing - is a system of progressively higher rates. The same kind of "progressive" income tax Sen. Bob Rochelle is pushing for Tennessee. But here's the real truth: Federal dollars pay for about two-thirds of the state's budget. But the top half of all income earners pay 96 percent of all the income taxes. The reality is, the rich already fund most of state government. Requiring the not-so-rich to pay a minor portion of the overall budget is not too much to ask.