There are two types of federal tax – direct tax (excise tax), and indirect tax. Taxes deducted from workers’ paychecks are mandatory [direct taxes], and fall into three categories: Social Security, Medicare and federal income taxes. The federal government charges direct taxes, for certain products, or services purchased for instance, gasoline, tobacco, alcohol, real estate, landline, cellphone, toll or sales taxes. …show more content…
However, the wealthiest 20% of Americans pay the most in federal income taxes, paying 86.8% of all the federal income tax collected by the Internal Revenue Service.
<>Fact #3- Everyone Pays Federal Taxes<>
The majority of Americans pay federal taxes. Only 10% of households pay no federal taxes. In order to avoid paying any federal taxes, a person would have to withdraw from the U.S. economic system.
Those who believe that the wealthy pay more in taxes base their sentiment only on the payment of federal income taxes. Others believe wealthy Americans pay little, or zero federal tax, while low- and middle-income Americans pay the most. Everyone pays federal taxes including the wealthy - the distributions of who pays what amount is widely spread out. This is because nearly all Americans pay excise taxes, which includes taxes on cigarettes, gasoline, tobacco, phones and alcohol.
Here is a comparison of the 2015 total federal taxes paid in the U.S. - the lowest 20% paid 0.8%, the second lowest 20% paid 3.4%, the middle-income paid 9.2%, the second richest 20% paid 17.5% and the richest 20% paid