PeakTrader.com

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http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/24944.html

July 29, 2009

Tax Burden of Top 1% Now Exceeds That of Bottom 95%

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.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/How-the-Government-Is-usnews-2224998074.html?x=0

According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, the average cost for a Thanksgiving feast for ten lies at $42.91 in 2009. The menu items for a classic Thanksgiving dinner used for their survey include turkey, bread stuffing, sweet potatoes, rolls with butter, peas, cranberries, a relish tray of carrots and celery, pumpkin pie with whipped cream, and beverages of coffee and milk. Of that, of course, the turkey is the largest cost factor at an average price of $18.65 for a 16-pound bird. Because Thanksgiving is a celebration, for our calculations, we also factored in five bottles of wine at an average price of $7.35, which brings the total cost of the average Thanksgiving feast to $79.67.

But not all of that reflects the actual cost of your meal – a large chunk of it is taken by the government in some form or another:

On top of the direct excise taxes on the wine, there are taxes paid by the farmers, winemakers, manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors and shippers, retailers, warehouses. To be more specific, out of what the consumer pays, the producers and sellers must pay federal income taxes, state income taxes, federal payroll taxes, unemployment insurance taxes, workmen’s compensation taxes, state franchise taxes, local property taxes and any local income taxes. All told, for a Thanksgiving feast for a family of ten, the government takes a bite of 40.91%, or $32.59.

http://www.fiscalaccountability.org/point-percent-cost-thanksgiving-dinner-brought-a1039#