The President says he's "asking millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share," which by implication means that those Americans aren't paying enough. But the President's sense of "fairness" doesn't take into account the reality that the top 10 percent of income earners already pay 70 percent of federal income taxes. Heritage's Curtis Dubay explains how those numbers break down:
According to the IRS, the top 1 percent of income earners--those earning more than $380,000 in 2008--paid more than 38 percent of all federal income taxes while earning 20 percent of all income. The top 10 percent ($114,000 and above) earned 45 percent of income and paid 70 percent of all taxes. At the same time, the bottom 50 percent of income earners--those earning less than $33,000--earned 13 percent of all income and paid less than 3 percent of federal income taxes.Now the President wants to pile another tax burden on their heads, and that will lead to fewer jobs for all Americans, including middle- and low-income workers. Those who would pay these new taxes under Obama's plan include investors who provide capital for businesses to expand, thereby creating more jobs for American workers, as well as entrepreneurs who use capital to start new enterprises. And because many businesses pay their taxes through their owners' individual income tax returns, the President's new tax hike will directly target those employers. If the President wants to create more jobs in America, confiscating money from job creators in order to fund more government spending isn't the way to do it.
