AP debunks Obama's class warfare tactic

The rich really do pay more in taxes.

From AP:

President Barack Obama makes it sound as if there are millionaires all over America paying taxes at lower rates than their secretaries.

"Middle-class families shouldn't pay higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires," Obama said Monday. "That's pretty straightforward. It's hard to argue against that."

The data tell a different story. On average, the wealthiest people in America pay a lot more taxes than the middle class or the poor, according to private and government data. They pay at a higher rate, and as a group, they contribute a much larger share of the overall taxes collected by the federal government.

There may be individual millionaires who pay taxes at rates lower than middle-income workers. In 2009, 1,470 households filed tax returns with incomes above $1 million yet paid no federal income tax, according to the Internal Revenue Service. That, however, was less than 1 percent of the nearly 237,000 returns with incomes above $1 million.

And as Senate Minority Leader phrased it yesterday about Warren Buffett, who says he does not pay enough in taxes, "With regard to his tax rate, if he's feeling guilty about it, I think he should send in a check."

And Obama's new tax scheme that supposedly hits only millionaires includes fees that almost all of us will pay.

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