Check the facts on that tax assertion

This letter is in response to the last paragraph of the May 8 letter by George Blinick. Mr. Blinick states that “the mega rich pay a lesser percentage on their income than working people.” I believe he was talking about individual federal income taxes based on the earlier paragraphs in his letter.

First, we need to define “working people.” How is this for a definition? Both spouses working, combined salary of $80,000, two kids, paying for day care, mortgage interest and taxes at 20 percent of their gross income, state income tax rate at 5 percent. Their total federal tax liability is $2,734, or 3.42 percent of their gross income.

If the same family only makes $60,000 per year using the same relative deductions, their total federal tax liability is $484, or .81% of their gross income.

A tax return with an AGI of $60,000 per year is right around the top 30th percentile based on income, using 2009 figures (per Taxfoundation.org). That means that a large percentage of working families are paying less than 2 percent of their income in individual federal income taxes. I will use Mitt Romney as the “mega rich” taxpayer. The Romney’s effective tax rate for 2010 was 13.9 percent. So their effective tax rate was 17 times greater than the working family making $60,000 and four times greater than the working family making $80,000.

I am not suggesting that we need to take up a collection for the Romneys or that we shouldn’t do something to revise the tax code. I just want people like Mr. Blinick, who apparently gets his information from MSNBC, to have the real facts regarding individual federal income taxes and which taxpayers are actually paying them.

Jay Dahl

Palatine