Zombie Ideas: Only The Rich Pay Taxes

Posted by Mark Price on April 25, 2011 9:41 am

Posted in:

A big part of our work is fighting zombie ideas — claims that don't actually have empirical support but just keep getting repeated over and over again. On Friday and again this morning, Paul Krugman let loose his wicked cricket bat on one we hear repeated ad nauseam by Harrisburg pundits.

The claim that only rich people pay taxes is a zombie lie — something that keeps coming back no matter how many times it’s killed by evidence.

Krugman points us to analysis of all federal taxes as well as state and local taxes (PDF), which illustrates pretty clearly that the taxes paid by each income group is similar to their shares of total income.

Comments

0 comments posted

Post new comment

Comment Policy:

Thank you for joining the conversation. Comments are limited to 1,500 characters and are subject to approval and moderation. We reserve the right to remove comments that:

are injurious, defamatory, profane, off-topic or inappropriate;
contain personal attacks or racist, sexist, homophobic, or other slurs;
solicit and/or advertise for personal blogs and websites or to sell products or services;
may infringe the copyright or intellectual property rights of others or other applicable laws or regulations; or
are otherwise inconsistent with the goals of this blog.

Posted comments do not necessarily represent the views of the Keystone Research Center or Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center and do not constitute official endorsement by either organization. Please note that comments will be approved during the Keystone Research Center's business hours.

If you have questions, please contact [email protected]

Third and State