While the federal tax system is progressive, it is not the only tax that people pay, and hence it's open for debate what the tax burden is across different incomes. There is a on gonging attempt to figure this out on The Daily Howler. The first piece of evidence is this article in the nytimes by Daniel Altman which talks about how taken on a year by year basis the tax system is pretty flat. However when you look at the system across one's lifetime, the numbers skew out more in the "free ride" to 51% range. Noah in a slate peice explains how poor the "free ride" section is. If you manage to average 1.5X the minimum wage across your lifetime, you end up paying 14% in taxes. What we need to understand the discrepancy is an example of what happens during retirement such that a 19% turns into 51% overall. (Estate tax?)
2:59:56 PM    comments ==