We're Not Talking Communism Here

This post has updated information on tax burden by income.

Now, setting the scene for our timeless drama:

Taxes are what we pay for civilized society
— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Compania General De Tabacos De Filipinas v. Collector of Internal Revenue, November 21, 1927

The income tax is paid almost entirely by the well-to-do.
— R. Glenn Hubbard, Chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. According to the Internal Revenue Service, the top 1 percent of taxpayers pay 37 percent of all federal income taxes.

A complete accounting shows that the wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers earned about 18 percent of all income in 2001 and paid about 25 percent of all federal taxes. It's a little progressive, but we're not talking about communism here.
— Robert S. McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice, after including Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes, and comparing income to total federal tax.

— Edmund L. Andrews, "Fight Looms Over Who Bears the Biggest Tax Burden," New York Times, January 14, 2003

It's an income tax, not a head tax. And shouldn't we consider all taxes, and disposable income? In another article,

The chart below is based on 2017 federal tax estimates from the Tax Policy Center, which employs alumni of Republican and Democratic administrations; and 2015 state and local tax estimates (the most recent available) from the liberal Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy:

When you look at all taxes combined (federal income, state income, payroll, sales, property, corporate income, etc.) the breakdown of "who pays what" looks about like a lot of people say it should: Almost everybody pays something, and rich people pay a much higher share of their income than poor people.

Contrary to what you might hear, the chart shows that:

• Almost everybody pays something. Taxpayers in the bottom fifth of the income distribution (average income: $14,190) may not pay much federal income tax, but altogether they pay about 15% of their income in tax, with about two-thirds of that going to state and local governments.
• The richest people tend to pay a substantially higher percentage of their income in taxes than middle-class or poor people do. The top 1% of taxpayers (average income: $2,093,940) pay about 40% of their income in tax, in part because, as stockholders, they are the ultimate payers of much of the corporate income tax.

A lot of complaints about taxes being unfair come from looking at one part of the tax system in isolation. (emphasis added)

Conservatives say too many Americans lack "skin in the game" because almost half of Americans pay no federal income tax. Liberals note that Social Security tax stops after $127,200 in income, and that state and local taxes tend to be a bit regressive.

But when you add all the taxes together, they produce a distribution of the tax burden that makes a lot more sense than the distribution of the burden of any individual tax.
— "America's tax code is more fair than people give it credit for," Josh Barro, Business Insider, Apr. 18, 2017

The problem is that the rich are screwing up our democracy. Less than 0.1 percent of the U.S. population gave 83 percent of all itemized campaign contributions for the 2002 elections, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
— Molly Ivins, "Bush Tax Plan Is Loaded With Goodies for the Rich," The Capital Times, Madison, WI, January 13, 2003, pg. 7A

Under the Bush administration, the IRS is increasing enforcement on Earned Income Tax Credit claims, while reducing enforcement in all the other areas. To be eligible for the Earned Income credit, the total household income must be less than $35,000.

IRS estimates of taxes lost to fraud, April 27, 2003
Earned Income Tax Credit	$10 Billion
Corporations	$46 Billion
Offshore Accounts	$70 Billion
Individual Taxpayers	$132 Billion

— "The IRS Goes After the Poor," The New York Times, April 27, 2003

The list of cuts - in child nutrition, medical care for children, child-care assistance and support for foster care and adoption (leave no child behind!) - was clearly designed to suggest that the budget can be balanced on the backs of the poor, without any significant cuts in programs that benefit the middle class.

Aside from its mean-spiritedness, this suggestion is simply false: our deficits are too large, and our current spending on the poor too small, for even the most Scrooge-like of governments to offer additional tax cuts for the rich without raising taxes or cutting benefits for the middle class.
— Paul Krugman, The New York Times, April 15, 2003