Something seems to be mistakenly, if not conveniently, missed in Tiffee’s logic. “The poor paying more?” I don’t think so.
The
following are pretty close estimates of the bottom of the 20 percent
bottoms and the bottom of the top 1 percent’s respective annual gross
income levels, those being $25,000 for the “poor” and $250,000 for the
“rich.” Multiply 10.3 percent by $25,000 and you have the “poor” paying
$2,575 in taxes. Multiply 4.6 percent by $250,000 and you have the
“rich” paying $11,500 in taxes. Huh? The rich guy is paying four and a
half times more in greenbacks than the poor guy. And Tiffee has the poor
paying more? And the rich guy and the poor guy get exactly the same
benefit from governmentally provided products and services.
I
don’t think the rich guy would agree with Tiffee’s assessment of the
poor paying more. Last time I checked, $11,500 amounted to a heck of a
lot more than $2,575. I believe the rich guy might want to trade tax
liabilities with the poor guy, don’t you?
Using his
logic, one could vainly attempt to make the case that the poor guy and
the rich guy were both looking to buy the same lower-income rental
property but the poor guy could settle for paying $40,000 for the
property while the rich guy would be required to pay $180,000 for it
because he either had been fortunate or even worked quite a bit longer,
harder and smarter to arrive at his respective income level. Is that the
way American property owners and realtors do business when selling
property? I don’t think so.
But then again, in Tiffee’s
economy, $2,575 is more than $11,500. So, maybe he might be able to
pull it off anyway, contingent upon the rich guy not being very good at
math.
—Brad Duncan, Edmond
