Originally Posted by skaltezon

.



^ ^ Quoted from The Economist at Taxing the wealthy: Diving into the rich pool | The Economist .

What The Economist doesn't say is that the top 1% of earners owns 34.3% of the country's wealth, which makes their 40% contribution in taxes seem a lot less onerous.
Wealth Distribution




^ ^ Quoted from HowStuffWorks at HowStuffWorks "Is it true that only 53 percent of Americans pay income tax?"

Conversely, the bottom 40% of the population owns way less than 1% of the wealth, which probably explains why they have no money to tax.
Wealth Distribution

.