Is Hillary Clinton Right That The Rich Don't Pay Their "Fair Share" of Taxes?

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently said that "the rich are not paying their fair share" of taxes in the United States and other developed countries.

Is she right? It depends on what you consider fair. Using 2006 data, The New York Times found that the richest 20 percent of households were paying 26 percent of their income to the federal government in the form of income, payroll, corporate, and excise taxes. The average for all familes? 21 percent.

And there's this: "In 2006, the top quintile of households earned 55.7 percent of pretax income and paid 69.3 percent of federal taxes, while the top 1 percent of households earned 18.8 percent of income and paid 28.3 percent of taxes."

Paying in a lot more than you get out? That doesn't seem fair.

The rich are different than you and me; they've got more money. And they pay more taxes.

Politicians are different too--they rarely say what they really mean. Perhaps what Secretary Clinton means is that the rich can always pay more than they're already paying.

That would explain why she and the president are lobbying to let the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of the year, a policy that would raise all sorts of taxes on all sorts of people.

Which doesn't sound all that fair either.

Produced by Meredith Bragg and Nick Gillespie.

Go to http://reason.com/blog/2010/05/28/hillary-clinton-the-rich-are-d for documentation and graphs.

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[jkessler410]

@ChibiabosWolf And let me add to the last bit of idiocy, Middle class do not pay 30% federal income tax, Rich do not pay 15%, 15% is capital gains tax, meaning the rich pay additional tax on earnings they make on money they already paid income tax on long ago.. the issue with your entire ideology is you lack critical thinking and have no desire to actually analyze the rhetoric you spit out.

[edwinorc]

@Derekrife Yes. It isn't an equation.

[phookadude]

What about social security? The federal government recives 51% percent of it's income from social security taxes, wich the the rich pay less of. And before you say it's a benifit or a savings plan then if it's so wonderfull let's allow the rich to pay 10% or so of thier income into it too.

[Yamazon3]

@PissedFechtmeister,

Depends on what taxes you are talking about. Let's talk about STRICTLY the federal level taxes, the top 1% in the united states tax bracket is only 35%. Even then, you can't actually hit 35% taxes, because our taxes are indexed, so by the time you reach the top tax bracket you will only have paid about 29.02% in taxes, even though the second highest tax bracket is 33%. Also, the US census says the top 1% make closer to 40% of the income. Sources are all .gov sites.

[PissedFechtmeister]

@butsgalore If his employees are paying 30% then they are the 1%. The top 1% pay an average 24% income tax rate.

[PissedFechtmeister]

@Yamazon3 If Buffet is paying 19% then he's paying more than the top 10% are on average. The top 1% earn 17% of the income but pay 37% of the taxes.

[PissedFechtmeister]

@ChibiabosWolf Your 30% figure is pure fiction. People in the top 25%-50% range pay less than 6% on average. The bottom 50% pay less than 2%.

[PissedFechtmeister]

@ChibiabosWolf So what you're saying is that 0.015% of Americans die each year because of lack of health care. That sounds like an amazing success to me.

[agnostaxian]

rather than attacking the rich and corporations and businesses, why dont democrats attack the most rich, corrupt, inefficient institution on the planet? The US government

[paulgreenjunior]

@ChibiabosWolf Your percentages are WAY off. I'm assuming your "wealthiest 10% pay less than 18%" in taxes refers to the progressive income tax--which has nothing to do with wealth. It's an INCOME tax--a tax on income, not wealth. On the other hand, the facts are VERY clear: the top 10% of income earners in the US in 2008 paid in over 70% of all the income taxes collected; the bottom 50 (yes fifty)%: paid in 2.7% of all taxes collected! Who is paying MORE than the fair share??