Who pays taxes?

We need a non-partisan, official board that rules on the existence of certain facts -- not a lot, just a few facts that are so foundational, so based on evidence, so unquestionable by sentient people as to constitute a body of truth. Things like: gravity, evolution, global warming, who pays taxes.

We're having a spate of nitwit politicians saying the opposite of facts, or using innuendo in that sly way of being literally true while being totally misleading, intentionally. It is beyond maddening to have Republicans continue to beat the drum saying that 51% of U. S. households do not pay any income taxes.

Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) proclaimed it on the Senate floor, with obvious disdain: "A majority of American households paid no income tax in 2009. Zero. Zip. Nada. No income tax was paid by 51 percent of the households in America in 2009." Senator Hatch (R-UT) chimed in, saying "they [the poor and working classes] need to share in the responsibility."

Others, including Michele Bachmann, have called on the poor to step up and pay their share of taxes. "Everyone should have a some skin in the game," is the way she put it one day. Of course, on another day, she had said that everyone ought to get to keep 100% of what they make -- i.e., nobody should pay any taxes at all. I guess the Easter bunny would fill the U.S. treasury.

Every tax plan advanced thus far by one of the GOP candidates (flat tax, 9-9-9, hybrid plan) actually benefits the rich at the expense of the poor.

So what is the truth about who pays taxes?

When they say that "51% pay no income tax, what they want you to hear, of course, is that all these lower income people do not pay any taxes.

That is simply not true. Any working person pays payroll taxes. In most states, any person who buys things pays sales tax. Any one who owns property pays property taxes. Any one who owns a car pays ad valorem taxes. Telephone? Have you noticed lately how much tax and fees are added to your phone bill? In all of those, the poor pay the same rates as the rich, so the amount of tax is a far higher portion of their income.

The reason the wealthy pay more tax in dollar amounts is their astronomically greater income, which may be largely captial gains taxed at 15%.

These Republican politicians must really be getting scared that their party is over, and they are desperate to quell the "tax the rich" movement before it gets out of hand. In a recent poll, 51% of even of their wealthy peers said that taxes should be raised on that upper 1%.

We need to rig up a loud buzzer to go off every time one of them spouts that line about poor people not paying any (income) tax. Better yet: a trap door, and they fall into a pit of crocodiles.

Ralph