TAXES: Key data omitted

Dear Mr. Smith: You said that tax rates have consistently declined since the 1980s. That’s fraudulently misleading. You’re missing the words “Top Marginal” which are fairly important because only the wealthy pay at the top marginal rate on the very tip of their income.

The brackets for 2021 for single taxpayers are $0-9,950/$9,951-40,525/$40,256-86,375/$86,376-164,925/$164,926-209,425/$209,426-523,600/$523,601 and up. The rates for these brackets are 10/12/22/24/32/35/37.

Since you obviously need help with this, if you make $50,000 you pay taxes at 3 rates. 10% for the first bracket, 12% for the second bracket, and 22% for your over $40K income. Those rates at the bottom are largely what they were 50 years ago, for the most part only the top marginal rates have changed. Furthermore, they have been declining since the end of World War II. In 1951 the top marginal rate was 91% (a far cry from 37%).

This is all largely a red herring. For you and me, it counts but maybe you could explain why Warren Buffet has stated that his average tax rate is less than his secretary’s. Furthermore, you spout the garbage about Social Security and Medicare. Social Security and medicare are paid for with payroll taxes which are over and above your income taxes and are paid into a trust fund.

The Social Security trust fund currently has over $3T in it and Medicare’s is also in the black (but less so). Your income taxes pretty much only pay for the military, war, interest on the $29T in U.S. debt, and government operations. And we don’t tax enough for even those few things as the deficit for 2021 was $2.8T (none of which was attributable to Social Security or Medicare since they paid their bills in full).

JEFFREY HARRISON

Worley