IF THE RICH SHOULD PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE, WE SHOULD CUT THEIR TAXES

From American Thinker:

Scott Hodge writing on the Tax Policy Blog:

Newly released data from the IRS clearly debunks the conventional Beltway rhetoric that the "rich" are not paying their fair share of taxes.

Indeed, the IRS data shows that in 2007-the most recent data available-the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 40.4 percent of the total income taxes collected by the federal government. This is the highest percentage in modern history. By contrast, the top 1 percent paid 24.8 percent of the income tax burden in 1987, the year following the 1986 tax reform act.

Remarkably, the share of the tax burden borne by the top 1 percent now exceeds the share paid by the bottom 95 percent of taxpayers combined. In 2007, the bottom 95 percent paid 39.4 percent of the income tax burden. This is down from the 58 percent of the total income tax burden they paid twenty years ago.

To put this in perspective, the top 1 percent is comprised of just 1.4 million taxpayers and they pay a larger share of the income tax burden now than the bottom 134 million taxpayers combined.

This has all taken place under the evil Bush regime that, as everyone knows, favored rich people and stuck it to the middle class.

In fact, a study done last year showed that it wasn't France, or Sweden, or any European country that had the most "progressive" tax system in the developed world. It was the good old USA.

Repeat a lie enough times and it becomes the recieved truth. Then something like THIS comes along! Well, at least there's no danger of many people finding out.