Help with St. Ronnie debunking ...

[daggahead]

The chart below show a perceived shift of tax burden to the wealthy, but we know that Reagan gave some juicy tax breaks to the wealthy. A friend of mine insists that the wealthy somehow got screwed in the tax game by Ronnie.

Can anybody help me turn the tables on my conservative friend?

[Cassandra]

1. The unfortunate by-product...

of depressing wages for the bottom 50%.

[Turbineguy]

2. You can prove anything with statistics.

The rich pay a lot in taxes, taken cumulatively. Their tax burden relative to their wealth has gone down however. As for the lowest 50%, there's a reason they don't pay much. They're poor!

But it must be a Fox News chart as the numbers add up to 139% for 1993.

[former9thward]

3. The top 1% is part of the top 5% and both are part of the top 10%.

If you add them up separately you get more than 100% but they are together.

[Turbineguy]

4. Thanks.

Of course. It's all so clear to me now. http://www.hark.com/clips/qskyzpgbsx-eureka2

[Canuckistanian]

5. Those green bars are SUPPOSED to be a LOT higher

This is their SHARE of the tax burden, without mentioning their incomes.

Yet their incomes have BALLOONED, and their share still remains relatively flat. Their "share" is totally out of whack with their incomes.

Bottom line? They need to pay MORE of the tax burden to keep the same PROPORTION with their incomes.

[The Magistrate]

6. Browse This, Sir

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

Among other things, the top one percent receive about a fifth of all household income. Income, of course, is not all there is; regarding capital assets, wealth, the disparity is enormous, something like five percent own more than ninety [ercent of the people together do. Nor is income tax the total tax burden; poorer people pay far more in excise and payroll taxes, and in local taxes, such as sales taxes and even property taxes. The total tax burden, as a proportion of income, is much higher for the less well off than for the wealthy.

[bbinacan]

7. I think the tax reform act of 86

closed a lot of loopholes. I remember my Dad complaining about it.

[Jim__]

8. Income taxes got shifted to the wealthy because income got shifted to the wealthy.

Sure, the wealthy pay a higher percentage of all income tax revenue, but the total percentage of revenue that goes to the wealthy got shifted far more definitively.

[Rabblevox]

9. Yep. Show your friend this income chart, and compare it...

to the tax chart. Makes it pretty obvious that while net taxes on the rich have gone up slightly, as a percentage of income their taxes have gone sharply down. Lobbyists and off-shore accounts, gotta love em!