(不妨听听专家是如何看美国税制的不公平. 没时间细看，可以光看图）
Fair Taxes for All
访谈视频
（下文中有好几张图不知为什么贴不上，有兴趣的朋友可参看 http://billmoyers.com/2014/06/06/taxes-who-pays-how-much-in-eight-charts/ .非常直观）
The US Is One of the Least Taxed Countries
Here’s some important context: Overall, we pay relatively little in taxes today compared to other wealthy countries.
Of
the 24 countries that were members of the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 1979, the US paid the 16th highest
share of its economic output in taxes.
Fast-forward to 2010, and the US was the third least taxed country, ranking 32nd out of 34 OECD countries in terms of taxes
as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). As the graph below
shows, only two countries, Chile and Mexico, paid less in taxes than the
US did in 2010. And as the green bar shows, the 24.8 percent we forked
over in taxes was significantly less than the average of 33.4 percent
that the other 33 countries paid.
On the Federal Level, Corporate Taxes Are Down and Payroll Taxes Are Up
This
graphic shows that since 1950 the share of federal revenues from
individual income taxes has remained relatively stable. But during that
same period, corporations’ share of the burden has plummeted, while the
contributions from workers’ payroll taxes have dramatically increased.
That’s
an important point because payroll taxes are regressive — after the
first $117,000, the more money a person makes, the smaller the share of
income gets deducted from his or her paycheck.
Federal Taxes Are Down; State and Local Taxes Are Up
As
you can see from the chart below, the federal government collected a
smaller share of the nation’s economic output in taxes from 2010 to 2012
than it had at any time since 1950.
But over that same period, since 1950, the share collected by state and local governments has almost doubled.
Why That Matters
Perhaps you’re thinking, ‘Why does the distinction between federal taxes and state and local taxes matter? A buck is a buck.’
The
reason it’s important is because at the federal level, those with
higher incomes pay a larger share of their incomes in taxes than those
who earn less, as the chart below shows.
While
the richer pay a higher tax rate at the federal level, the opposite is
true when it comes to state and local taxes. As the chart below shows,
in 2011, America’s top earners paid a lower percentage of state and
local taxes on their income, 7.9 percent, while the bottom earners paid a
higher rate at 12.3 percent.
Many states’ income taxes are less
progressive than the federal system, property taxes tend to be somewhat
regressive and sales and “sin” taxes are very regressive. A 2013 study by the Institute on Taxation and Policy found that those kinds of consumption taxes averaged a “7 percent rate
for the poor, a 4.6 percent rate for middle incomes, and a 0.9 percent
rate for the wealthiest taxpayers.”
Polls consistently find that most Americans across the ideological spectrum favor the principle
of progressive taxation — with the wealthier bearing a bigger piece of
the burden than the middle class and the poor. Shifting federal taxes to
the state and local levels makes our system less progressive overall.
Who Gets the Tax Breaks?
The
chart below shows the percent of all tax breaks — the myriad deductions
and credits written into our tax code — given to individuals at
different income levels. The Congressional Budget Office says these
breaks “resemble federal spending by providing financial assistance to
specific activities, entities, or groups of people.”
As you will
see below, the highest income group got the lion’s share of the tax
breaks, 51 percent, while the lowest income group got the least, 8
percent.
What about the Tippy-Top?
As
much as we talk about income inequality and the 1 percent, the greatest
inequities exist even higher in the economic stratosphere.
This
chart looks only at the wealthiest 400 families. They make up about the
top 1 percent of the 1 percent. While their average income increased by
392 percent between 1992 and 2007 (and most of us are thrilled when we
get a cost of living increase of 3 percent), their tax rate dropped by
37 percent.
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