A Real Tax Rate of 40%
I don’t know how I missed this article on MSN Money in late February. It is really an eye opener about the way we are taxed. Unfortunately the article doesn’t really go into the details of how they calculated all these tax rates for each age group.
As I skimmed the article something significant did catch my eye: My wife and I happen to fall near the lowest real tax rates on the chart.
I don’t know what to make of this information without the details but it is nice to know that I am not having all of my earnings being garnished in the form of some tax. This does bring up the question why does a 30y/o couple making around $50,000 a year have the lowest real tax. In fact if you look at the chart the lowest real tax rates fall in the 50,000-$100,000 range which would likely be considered the upper middle class.
If you happen to be someone who champions help for those who are worse off than we are then it really gives you some ammo to work with. Without better details however these are only generalizations. These differences probably result from different consumption taxes like “sin taxes” which tend to affect the lower class population more than the upper classes.
Like everything in life nowdays… the devil is in the details
