Taxes: What is Your Fair Share?

As you gather your W-2's, receipts, and other documents to prepare your 2013 income taxes, you may wonder where you fall in providing the purse to
"form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common Defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity...." 

Check out the Kiplinger Report to see where you rank as a taxpayer as you get ready to file your 2013 Tax Return.

The Taxpayer Holiday expired January 1, 2013 and all Americans began paying more taxes on their 2013 income but the biggest increase of all affected those with pre-tax incomes of more than $500,000 (roughly the top 1% of tax payers). Tax-filers for 2013 in the top 1% will see their tax rate at pre-Reagan levels of slightly more than 36%:

Just who are the taxpayers in the top 1% and what should we understand about their tax rate of slightly more than 36%?  Forbes magazine published an article in March, 2012 that describes the differences in wealth of various classes of taxpayers and why the rich are getting richer leaving the rest of us behind:

 Before you can talk about the 1 percent, it’s important to put the figures into perspective by understanding exactly what that figure means. The average annual income of the top 1 percent of the population is $717,000, compared to the average income of the rest of the population, which is around $51,000. The real disparity between the classes isn’t in income, however, but in net value: The 1 percent are worth about $8.4 million, or 70 times the worth of the lower classes.

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Between 2007 and 2009, Wall Street profits swelled by 720 percent, even while unemployment rates doubled and home equity dropped by 35 percent. Since 1979, the bottom 90 percent of the nation has consistently lost money while the upper classes have gained. If the average person’s wages had kept pace with the economy since the 70s, most people would be making $92,000 per year. [Alan Dunn, "Average America vs the One Percent", Forbes.com , March 21, 2012] 

This infograph shows just what the differences are between the top 1% and the "Average American" who earns $51,413 a year:



Now,  do you think you're paying your "fair share"?  Do you think the top 1% is paying their "fair share"?

Want to see what other countries pay in income taxes?  Click on the following interactive map to see world tax rates and also what universal healthcare and maternity benefits the population receives:



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