The Convenient Tax-Time Invisibility of America's Rich

from Too Much: A Commentary on Excess and Inequality:



America's Invisible Rich
In the states where America's wealthy congregate, politicians can't seem to see any wealthy people when the time comes to decide who to tax.

August 11, 2008

By Sam Pizzigati

Governors don’t usually deliver primetime TV addresses. That’s something Presidents do. But late last month New York Gov. David Patterson did take to primetime — to declare a state budget “crisis” and call lawmakers back to Albany for a special session.

New Yorkers, pollsters announced last week, share the governor’s unease. A whopping 86 percent agree that the state has a fiscal crisis. New Yorkers also agree on a solution: tax the rich. By a 78 to 18 percent margin, New Yorkers favor hiking taxes on households that make over $1 million a year.

Those households currently abound in the Empire State. New IRS statistics, released July 31, show that New York has the nation’s most top-heavy distribution of income in the entire United States.

In 2006, New York’s top 1 percent of taxpayers — that’s everyone making over $517,800 a year — grabbed 28.7 percent of the state’s income, nearly three times the total income of the state’s bottom 50 percent of taxpayers. No other state in the nation sports a wider income gap between top 1 and bottom 50.

Nationally, the top 1 percent of taxpayers in 2006 collected just over a fifth of all personal income in the United States, 21.1 percent. In ten states, including New York, the top 1 percent claimed an income share over that 21.1 percent level.

These ten states also share something else in common. All ten, the Washington, D.C.-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy charged last week, have tax systems that “generally ignore” the considerable deep-pocket presence within their borders. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.toomuchonline.org/articlenew2008/aug11a.html