US Tax System

WSJ published a pretty compelling article yesterday about the current US tax system. Here are some highlights:

-40% of the country's households -- more than 44 million adults -- pay no income taxes at all.
-Those who make more than $43,200 (the top 40%) pay 99.1% of all income taxes.
-Those who made more than $87,300 in 2004, the top 10%, paid 70.8% of all income taxes
-The EITC program redistributes money from those who pay income taxes to 22 million families and individuals with incomes less than $36,348 through a government subsidy.
-The top 20% of workers, those with incomes over $64,300, pay 44.2% of the payroll tax while the bottom 20%, those who make less than $17,300, pay 4.2%.
-Lower-income workers typically receive more in Social Security benefits than they paid in, while the wealthy, who paid the most in taxes, simply can't live long enough to get back what they paid.
-As for Medicare, it doesn't matter that the rich paid far more in taxes; all recipients receive the same benefits. Think of it this way. If Medicare were a car, its price for a low-income worker would be $145 and its price for a millionaire would be $14,500, even though it's the very same car.