CAMPOS: Tax burden? What burden?

[MinM]

CAMPOS: Tax burden? What burden?

In 2006, households with incomes of $10 million or more paid less than 21 percent of their total income in federal taxes.

How does this happen? Well, consider a really rich couple - Bill and Melinda Gates (in our new Gilded Age, people like the Clintons, who depend on the charity of much richer friends to ferry them about in private jets and the like, can in economic terms be thought of as "middle upper class.")

The Gateses' own approximately 830,000,000 shares of Microsoft stock. The dividend on this stock alone produced $366,577,390 last year. The Gateses paid a 15 percent tax on that. And since they have no salaries, they don't even have to pay the microscopic percentage of their income in Social Security taxes that the Clintons are required to contribute.

We live in a wondrous age, when the nation's richest couple pays half as much tax, in percentage terms, as people who make less than $50,000 a year...

[sinkingfeeling]

1. About 6 weeks ago, I cleared out all of the 1040 instruction books and tax tables I had

kept for over 40 years, but I still kept the copies of my 1040's. I was looking through the pre-St. Ronnie tax tables, and realized how much our tax structure has changed. Way back in the '70's I was paying a much higher percentage on my 'middle class' salary than I do today... more than double. And of course, back than there were no credits for having your children, nor 'child care' credit, nor EIC.