Mo Johnson's letter to the editor (2/10/12) claims that "the poorest of the working poor pay a higher tax rate than the wealthy in America." Let's assume the working poor make $25,000/year, married filing jointly with two kids, in which case they wouldn't owe any taxes at all, but would instead receive a $2,000 refund due to the Earned Income Tax Credit. Their effective tax rate would be negative 8 percent.
Mr. Johnson's example of the rich "not paying their fair share"
is Mitt Romney, who paid $3 million in tax on an income of $21.7 million for a 14 percent tax rate. By my arithmetic, negative 8 percent is lower than positive 14 percent, not higher as Mr. Johnson seems to believe. And with respect to the "fair share" concept, Mr. Romney receives no greater benefits from federal spending than the rest of us. He actually receives less, because I'm pretty sure he's not drawing money from Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps, welfare, subsidized housing, etc. And he paid $3 million for the privilege of drawing less government benefits than the working poor do.
Liberals are always fond of finding ways to spend other people's money. I would have been much more impressed if Mr. Johnson had offered to have his own taxes raised for the benefit of those less fortunate. But to claim that "the working poor pay a higher tax rate than the wealthy," and that the wealthy have not been paying their "fair share" borders on the ridiculous.
John Stewart
Manassas
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