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What percentage of someone else's income are you entitled to?

Asked by josie (30934points) September 20th, 2010

Let’s figure that every American benefits somehow by the distribution of Federal tax revenue. If people could argue persuasivly otherwise, the current tax philosophy would not pass muster in a democracy.
But the following is also true-
statistics from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service for 2000 show that returns showing less than $15,000 in adjusted gross income amounted to 30% of total returns filed but accounted for less than 1% of tax paid. By contrast, although they made up only 2% of all taxpayers that year, taxpayers reporting $200,000 or more in adjusted gross income paid 45% of all federal income taxes.

That means that some people do not pay very much for the same overall benefit of being a citizen as others.

That means that those who do not pay much tax, are getting their per capita “share” paid by somebody else.

If someone does not pay their per capita “share” of benefit, what percentage of somebody else’s income are they entitled to in order to make up for the shortfall? Is the current percentage too much, too little, or just about right?

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