{"id":485,"date":"2013-01-31T14:39:27","date_gmt":"2013-01-31T22:39:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/?p=485"},"modified":"2014-03-18T10:10:20","modified_gmt":"2014-03-18T17:10:20","slug":"its-good-to-be-rich-and-pay-state-taxes-and-it-sucks-to-be-poor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/2013\/01\/31\/its-good-to-be-rich-and-pay-state-taxes-and-it-sucks-to-be-poor\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s good to be rich and pay state taxes. And it sucks to be poor."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Screen<\/a>If you want a quick summary how the American political and economic system is so skewed toward the wealthy, contrast these two reports.<\/p>\n

First, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy issued a report<\/a> on the most regressive (Washington state!) and most progressive state tax systems, taking into account all state, local, excise, and property taxes (but not fees, licensing, etc).<\/p>\n

Much is being made already out west about Oregon’s ranking as among the most progressive and Washington’s as most regressive, but the takeaway table for me is at the end.<\/p>\n

In only two states, New York and California, do the total tax rate paid by the top 5% exceed 17%. \u00a0In six states, the top 5% pay 15% or more of their income in taxes.<\/p>\n

Contrast with the bottom 20% of the income distribution. \u00a0In 27% states, they pay a state tax rate higher than 10% of their income, on average.<\/p>\n

Now let’s see how much income these two segments of society receive<\/a>. According to Federal income tax data from 2010, the top 10% control 33.1%<\/strong> of all income, while the lowest half<\/strong> of the income distribution receives only 11.7%<\/strong> of income.<\/p>\n

The reason: a heavy reliance in many states on the sales tax, and a gradual shift away from progressive income taxes.<\/p>\n

So much for an American tax system that unfairly targets high income earners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you want a quick summary how the American political and economic system is so skewed toward the wealthy, contrast these two reports. First, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy issued a report on the most regressive (Washington state!) … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paul-gronke","category-political-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":488,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485\/revisions\/488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/politika\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}