[SoFloFreeper]

In one year, the share of the income taxes of the top 20% increased incredibly -- from 84% to 95%.

[rb22982]

Hard to cut much if you aren’t paying much.

[JamesP81]

More middle class people have fallen out of the workforce over the past 8 years. Hard to pay taxes when you don’t make any money.

[Pollard]

What’s they’re definition of middle class?

Seems like 30 years ago it meant nice house in nice area, new car every 5-7 years, ability to give your children a shot at a better life aka college degree, fairly close to someplace where there’s plenty of work that pays well enough to do all that. That’s like 120k/yr these days isn’t it? So they’re paying single digits?

[Bryanw92]

We need to stop looking at “top xx% of earners” and start thinking in terms of taxes on labor. Every earner should have skin the game, as another poster pointed out, even if its only 1%, but the bulk of the tax burden should fall on people who can afford to write a check to buy a new A/C unit or a 5 series Beamer without worrying about anything vs those who don’t know how they will pay the power bill this month.

That’s why we need consumption taxes and not taxes on labor or capital. Like the Fair Tax.

[vette6387]

“In one year, the share of the income taxes of the top 20% increased incredibly — from 84% to 95%. “

In a perverse way, based on the taxes they pay, the country actually belongs to the rich. So on the one hand, we complain that through their excessive wealth, they buy our government to be what they want it to be. But they, and the corporations they control, do pay for nearly everything the government needs ( or wants ) money to pay for.

[crusher2013]

The folks in the top 5 to 20 percent would be upper middle class and likely pay most of taxes.

[Pelham]

There’s something called “the national income”- it’s the total of all income earned in the country.

The top percentiles earn a big enough portion of the national income that they are liable for the largest portion of taxes. It’s not just a result of the tax rate. It’s who earns.

If the middle class grows again the percentage paid by the top percentiles could decline as a percentage while staying the same in real numbers.

[SharpRightTurn]

Unfair to make 80% of the population shoulder 5.2% of the tax burden!

Get Bernie Sanders on the phone?

Curse the billionaires and millionaires who aren’t picking up their fair share!

Call Fauxcahontas!

[Steamburg]

The size of the middle class has been greatly diminished in the past 8 years.

[Crucial]

How much is this due to the shrinkage of the Middle Class during the ObamaCare years?

[amnestynone]

And as long as they are knocking down our borders, smearing us with the media and spending all of the money both of these elitists Democrats and Republicans alike need to pay more taxes not less. When they start listening to the rest of us then maybe we can lower their taxes, but not until then.

[minnesota_bound]

I know my tax on my pay is around 43%
I wish the rich would pay my taxes for me : )

[lightman]

“Moochelle, my belle, my honey-—I shrunk the middle class!”

[fireman15]

The way the article is worded... I believe it is saying the top 20% of people who pay income tax pay 95% of the tax. But only about half of the population pays any income tax. So to me the article is really saying that 10% of the people in the country are paying 95% of the income tax. I would speculate that many of those who post here are within that 10%. As far as I am concerned the freeloaders who with government assistance are living rent free to be in this country and are paying no income tax and own no property should not be allowed to vote to give themselves more of the money taken from the productive people in our society.