[lsbskins1]

The lowest 20% make on average 14900.00 a year, pay about 5% of their incomes in taxes and therefore live off of 14155.00 a year. The middle 20%, 51500.00 a year, 20% in taxes, live off of 41200.00 a year and the top 20% average 182700.00 a year, pay 25% in taxes and live off of 137025.00 a year. Which group would you rather belong to, percentage difference in tax rates or no? Percentage of total tax burden is almost an irrelavant statistic. The question is who lives better. Who can afford to have their tax rates go up? Even if the top 20 paid twice as much in taxes as they do, they would still make more than more than 3 times as much as the bottom 20. That is the relavant issue here.