“Hate your income tax rate? Join the club,” said Danielle Kurtzleben in USNews.com. As Americans dutifully filed their 1040s this week, just 55 percent told Gallup that their income taxes were fair, the lowest number in 12 years, and almost half thought their tax bill was “too high.” Ordinary Americans have every right to feel aggrieved, said Joseph Stiglitz in The New York Times, because, “put simply, the very rich don’t pay their fair share.” As we learned from Mitt Romney’s tax returns, multimillionaires take outrageous advantage of a loophole-filled tax code that gives them lower rates for capital gains earnings and big deductions for vacation homes and so-called business expenses. After years of playing on this tilted playing field, the wealthiest 1 percent now owns 40 percent of the nation’s wealth, but paid just 20 percent of all taxes in 2010. That leaves middle class families shouldering the bulk of the cost for defense, road building, safety-net programs, and education.
The rich hardly escape paying their fair share, said John Cochrane in The Wall Street Journal. When state, local, and property taxes are added to the federal tax rate, along with stealth taxes on everything from booze to cigarettes to airplane tickets, some successful people can pay upwards of 60 percent or more. That’s confiscatory. A fairer tax code would include an “alternative maximum tax”—so once you’ve paid, say, 50 percent of your income in taxes, “you’ve done your bit and federal income taxes can take no more.” People would also feel better about paying taxes if they could decide how some of their dollars are spent, said Elizabeth Dunn in The New York Times. Supporters of the military could direct 10 percent of their taxes to the Pentagon, for example, while lovers of opera and fine art could earmark taxes for the National Endowment for the Arts.
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