>What do we make of this as compared to the Citizens for Tax Justice findings? Who is right?
>Tax Burden Falls on the Wealthy
>Tue Apr 9, 2:08 AM ET
>By CURT ANDERSON, AP Tax Writer
>WASHINGTON (AP) - As a group, Americans whose incomes are in the top 5 percent are footing an increasingshare of the national income tax burden. People in thebottom half, on the other hand, are paying only a fraction of the total take.
Doug or Max can answer this better than I can. But part of the distortion here is to focus only on the Income Tax. The Feds collect more from social security and related taxes than they do from income taxes . And payroll taxes, especially given that they have ceilings hit the wealthy , and even the upper middle classes hardly at all.
Also the the share of income of the top grew while that of the rest shrunk for many decades. Under Clinton the share of the working class grew modestly (but did not make up lost ground) the share of the weatlhy grew even faster. So while the wealthy pay more in income tax than the everyone else, they pay a smaller percent of their income in income tax every year.