Mine and Yours

Having finally just completed my taxes, it's a good time to do some tax posting.

I'm a little confused at right wing reaction to the latest Tax Policy Center report concluding 47% of Americans don't pay federal income tax. It seems like every year during tax season the public is flooded with reports like these describing how "unfair" current tax policy is. My confusion stems from the disposition that I thought Republicans were for fewer taxes. And if fewer people are obligated to pay taxes, wouldn't that be a good thing if you supported less taxes?

As indicated, the number of Americans not paying taxes has risen about 9 percentage points since 2007. Without looking at any outliers, the sharp increase I suspect is because unemployment has almost doubled since 2007 and people's incomes have dropped substantially. This correlates with a dive in federal revenues. Less people working equals less people paying taxes doubly equaling less tax revenue for the government.  But that is neither here nor there when it comes to tax policy.  What is relevant is people pay more than just federal income taxes.  We have sales tax, payroll tax, property tax, state income tax and a load of fees of which that 47% number mentioned above doesn't cover.  That's the real problem with our current tax debacle,we have more than just federal income taxes.

When you add in all the taxes paid by Americans, the middle class has the largest burden of them all.   Personally  I believe property taxes are illegal.  Do I setup a private militia to ward off paying them?  No, I pay them and gripe every year.  But if we want to gripe about taxes, let's gripe about all of them and not just the one the wealthy want everyone to talk about.